


Fool Me Once

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Series: Story of Three Boys [46]
Category: Glee
Genre: Brothership, Easter Egg, Gen, M/M, Slash, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-20
Updated: 2012-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-31 12:02:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not a joke; rearranging living spaces; a visit from Connie Dean; spring break; a suit like Neal Caffrey; getting some culture; nobody knows what a shower caddy is; inappropriate questions and Miles Brown Behaving Badly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Teaser

**Author's Note:**

> Continued thanks to **david_of_oz** for his copyediting.

“Frank, you should stay in the lobby and get some shots of the hallway while I’m in the back talking to Principal Figgins,” Connie Dean suggests, while she and her camera man wait for Figgins’ secretary to call them into the office.

“Right this way,” the secretary announces after five or so minutes.

“Ms… Dean,” Figgins greets her, “welcome to our school.”

“Principal Figgins, it’s a pleasure,” Connie says, offering her hand. “We’re excited to be out here today. We dropped all the paperwork off with your secretary, so if you have any additional questions about that, you can give the station a call.”

“Yes, yes,” Figgins agrees. “Now, as you know, the PFLAG represents a small percentage of our large and diverse population of students here at McKinley!”

“It’s so wonderful that these student are being offered a voice here at McKinley,” Connie says, even though she’s fairly certain that’s not the angle Figgins is working here.

“Of course it is,” Figgins agrees, nodding even though he looks somewhat dubious. “I do hope you will remember the PFLAG is not representative of an official position of the school or the administration.”

“It is, of course, a school–sanctioned and school–sponsored club, correct?”

“Well, yes. Our guidance counselor, a lovely moral young woman, is the official sponsor.”

“Yes, Ms. Pillsbury has been very cordial and helpful,” Connie says. “We’ll be stopping by her office next, if that works for you.”

“Oh, excellent, yes, I’m sure she will make a capable guide for you,” Figgins agrees. “Please, Ms. Dean, do enjoy your stay here at our school.”

“I’m sure I will, Principal Figgins,” Connie answers, with a wide smile. “Thank you so much for letting us visit McKinley today!”

 

“Well, Stevie has the science fair, and Stacey has her performance, what else do you have going on after spring break, Sam?” Sam’s dad asks over Sunday dinner. 

“Besides Nationals?” Sam shrugs. “Graduation,” he grins. “Oh, and the school board meeting.”

“Why are you going to a meeting?” Stacey asks. 

“Our PFLAG group is trying to get the bullying policy changed, remember?” Sam says. “So no one gets hurt, and people get punished for hurting other people, even when they hurt someone that’s gay.”

“Hey!” Stevie exclaims. “We talked about that a couple of weeks ago. Did you know Hannah knows, like, a _ton_ of gay people?”

“A ton, huh?” Sam asks, exchanging an amused look with his mom. 

“Well, I suppose she _does_ know those nice boys in your glee club,” Sam’s mom says, with a little smile. “I’m not sure they qualify as a ton.”

“Just one, Mom,” Sam says, rolling his eyes a little. 

“No, not just Kurt!” Stevie protests. “She said…” He thinks for a minute. “Some girls that sing, Sammie, and some guys at _her_ church–thing, and her brother, and Kurt! See? A ton!”

Sam chokes on his Coke. “Uh, Stevie, I think you misunderstood Hannah.”

“I always forget the name of her church. I know it’s not really a church,” Stevie says apologetically. “You know what I mean!”

“It’s a synagogue, sweetheart,” Mrs. Evans says. “They’re Jewish. Such lovely children, Hannah and her brother.”

“Yeah, pretty sure that’s not how most people describe Puck, Mom,” Sam can’t help snorting. “And, Stevie, I meant you must’ve misunderstood about Hannah’s brother. He’s not gay.”

“She _said_!”

“Well,” Mrs. Evans says, suddenly, “other people’s personal lives might not be the most appropriate dinner table conversation. With each of you knowing one of the siblings, there’s bound to be the occasional mix-up, and you know how I feel about gossip.” She dabs at her lips with a napkin, but Sam can see her smiling behind it.

“Hannah probably meant her brother knew a lot of people. From PFLAG,” Sam settles on. “And Mom’s right, you probably shouldn’t go around talking about who’s gay or not.”

“Sam’s right, Stevie,” Mrs. Evans says. “Not everybody’s going to be as understanding, especially not right now.”


	2. Gay 20 Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miles Brown may or may not have friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Playlist tracks for RW 3x27 & 3x28](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5A42EB7425A965E3)

David only protests a little bit when Casey insists that they wait for Miles outside the PFLAG classroom. He’s very patient that way. Casey had wanted to ask Miles about the ‘friend’ April mentioned at the center, but then he sort of totally chickened out on Monday, but if even _Kurt_ knows about it, probably it’s okay for Casey to ask Miles some questions. If Miles has a new friend, his old friends should probably hear about it, right?

Miles saunters out of the room after five minutes or so, looking pleased with himself and playing with a piece of paper in his left hand. “Aww, you boys didn’t have to wait for me,” he greets them with a grin. 

“That’s what I said,” David nods.

“So, Miles,” Casey says, maybe a little too casually. “Tell us about your friend!”

“My friend? I got lots of friends, Cherry!”

“You have acquaintances, Miles Brown.” David shakes his head sadly. 

“Oh, hush, David. Miles has friends. Don’t you, Miles?” Casey smiles broadly at Miles. “And one of them is new! The new friend that Kurt mentioned. The one that April told us about.”

“Hmm. The one April told you about, you say?” Miles smirks a little. “I’m just not sure which friend you might mean. You got a name?”

Casey nods. “Yep. _Austin_. Your new friend Austin.”

“Oh.” Miles nods, a smug grin on his face. “That particular new friend. What do you need to know, Cherry?”

“Well,” Casey says, bouncing on his heels a little. “Are you going to see him again?” 

“Nah,” Miles shakes his head dismissively. “He wasn’t that kind of friend, you know? But we had a fun afternoon.” 

“Hmm. Well, what kind of friend was he, then?” Casey asks, and he notices a slow look of horror starting to spread across David’s face. 

Miles looks around the hallway. “The kind you look at like this.” Miles’ eyes sweep down and back up Casey’s body. “And then, the kind you take some place quiet and private.”

“Oh!” Casey says, putting his hands up over his mouth, because, well, nobody exactly looks at him like that, even just for an example. “Well!”

“Brown!” David hisses, looking absolutely scandalized. 

“What?” Miles says, shrugging one shoulder like it doesn’t even merit using both. “He asked me a question, Shep. I gave him an answer.”

David just shakes his head, still scowling. 

Before Casey can stop himself, he blurts out, “Was it _awesome_?”

Miles laughs, long and deep. “Oh, Cherry. You bet it was.” David is turning red, and if it’s possible, he looks even more appalled and scandalized. 

“So… where did you _go_?” Casey asks, because if he’s going to ask questions, he may as well ask all the important ones. “All the way back to Lima?”

“Nah, Austin lives outside Dayton. Ten or fifteen minutes from the center. Nice neighborhood.” Miles shrugs negligently. “Nice little room above his parents’ garage.”

“Ohh. Did you, um. Have dinner first or something like that?” 

Miles chuckles. “No. Not that kind of friend, like I said. We did each have a soda.”

“Well, what _kind_ of soda?” Casey asks. 

“Case, geez, do you want him to tape it next time?” David says suddenly, then looks utterly horrified when he realizes what he just said. 

“Kinky, Shep!” Miles says approvingly. 

“I. Um.” Casey looks at David and then looks at Miles and then looks back at David. He feels heat creeping into his cheeks and strongly considers just turning and running down the hallway. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Sorry, Miles.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Miles answers cheerfully. “Just ’cause some people are a little staid and repressed doesn’t mean you have to be.”

Casey picks at the cuff of his sleeve. “No. I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.” He shakes his head. “I wasn’t. Just.”

“Cherry,” Miles says, throwing an arm over his shoulder. “You ask all you want.” He shoots some kind of look at David, who just looks stubbornly back. David looks like he’s not exactly sure what he wants to say, but _is_ sure that whatever it is he might say, he’s _right_. Casey looks down at the floor, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the linoleum. 

“Did it, um.” Casey glances over at David, who is still glowering vaguely in Miles’ direction. Casey lowers his voice. “Did it… _hurt_?”

Miles does the same shrug, like everything’s no big deal. “Guess anything’s going to be a little different first time you try it, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess so,” Casey says, softly. “I’m sorry about all the questions, Miles. Really. I, um. I don’t have any more. I’m glad you had a nice time, though.”

“I told you, Cherry, you ask all you want.” Miles’ arm is still draped across Casey’s shoulders. “That April girl was right about the center. Even if she’s got it in for me.”

“Oh, I’m sure she doesn’t really,” Casey says, though she might. 

“I tell you, she likes Kurt way too much for her _not_ to have it in for me. Never mind Puckerman, too. All I wanted to do was ask Hudson about his hand.” Miles shakes his head sadly. “Everyone thinking the worst of me, Cherry, everyone but you.”

“Oh, Miles,” Casey sighs. “You’re really not that bad.”


	3. Shower Caddy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fuck is a shower caddy?

_hey dude, the fuck is a shower caddy?_

Finn fires off the text to Karofsky, because between Finn and Sam, they still can’t figure out what the fuck a shower caddy is and why they need one. When Finn Googled, he kept coming up with those things that hang in the shower, and he knows that can’t be right. 

_u told to get 1 2? no clu_

“Yeah, Karofsky’s got no clue either,” Finn says to Sam. “I think we need to take this problem to the streets, dude.”

“I wonder if _he_ got told to buy jock itch cream,” Sam grumbles. “But yeah. The streets.” He pauses. “Wait, what does that mean?”

“We’re gonna pick him up and walk around Wal-Mart until we figure it out,” Finn says. He taps out another text to Karofsky.

_picking you up in 30, gonna figure this out_

_sure_ is all Karofsky sends back, so in thirty minutes, Finn and Sam are pulling into Karofsky’s driveway as Sam chatters enthusiastically about maybe finding a picture for people of Wal-Mart, if nothing else. Karofsky walks out the door a few minutes later and Sam gets a little squished in the middle. 

“So what’s Casey doing today?” Finn asks, as he’s backing out of Karofsky’s driveway. 

“Rick,” Karofsky answers with a shrug. “Rick called whining about the Browns doing some kind of family trip today, so Casey drove over and picked him up. I think they’re going to GameStop or something.”

“He figure out how to change gears without making that noise?” Finn asks. 

“Mostly. He still dies on that little hill on the way to school.” Karofsky laughs for a second. “But he’s good on the interstate.”

“That’s good, I guess,” Finn says. “He’ll get there.”

“So no one knows what a shower caddy is?” Karofsky asks. “I have to take hand sanitizer. So weird.”

“Hand–warming packets,” Finn says. “Like fifty of them.”

“Jock itch cream,” Sam says sadly. “Three tubes.”

Karofsky laughs. “What kind of school are you going to, Evans?”

“I keep wondering.”

“Humid one?” Finn suggests. “Maybe they don’t wash the towels good or something.”

“Ugh. Maybe I’ll add extra towels to my list,” Sam says. “Thanks, Finn. Really.”

“Hey, I’m just throwing ideas out there,” Finn says, shrugging. “But seriously, I Googled that shower caddy thing, and maybe they’re just using the wrong name for it. That didn’t look like something to bring to college. It looked like the thing Kurt has that holds the shampoos and stuff.”

“Yeah, we’re in dorms, not some kind of interior decorating space, right?” Sam says. “I mean, we can’t permanently modify anything.”

“What kind of dorms you guys going to be in?” Karofsky asks. “Looks like most of the football team is in these four or six person apartment things at Tech.”

“Three rooms, bathroom, living space,” Finn says. “If they get the dorm finished in time, anyway. Otherwise it’s just two to a room, no bathroom.”

“New dorm?” Sam asks. “Sweet. Random roommates?”

Karofsky nods. “Yeah, who knows.” 

“Yeah, it looks like I get one suitemate, a whole floor of football players.” Sam shrugs. 

“I’m sharing with two of the guys I met at the meet and greet thing, Jamie and Doug,” Finn says. “They’re cool, so I think it’ll work out.”

“That’s lucky, knowing who you’ll be in with,” Sam nods. “Luckily since mine’s a suite, I guess I can ignore the other dude if I hate him. Except for when we both need the bathroom.” He pauses. “Which brings us back to the damn shower caddy.”

“Well, here we are, so we can see about figuring that the hell out,” Finn says. He parks in the Wal-Mart parking lot and the three of them head into the store. Finn and Sam both grab shopping carts and race each other down the main aisle. Karofsky shakes his head and ambles after them, muttering something about shopping carts bringing out the child in everyone. 

“Let’s ask someone!” Sam says cheerfully. “And help me look out for a good candidate for the website!”

“Are you still trying to get one of those People of Wal-Mart pictures?” Finn asks. 

“Absolutely. I sent one in last summer but they didn’t use it.”

“I love that site,” Karofsky admits. “Never thought about trying to get a picture to send in, though.”

“Sam’s a man with a mission about that site,” Finn says, shaking his head. “Ok, there’s a Wal-Mart dude. Let’s grab him before he gets away!”

“Awesome!” Sam approaches the guy in the blue vest. 

“You guys need help finding something?” the Wal-Mart guy asks, sounding like he sort of hopes they don’t.

“Yeah,” Finn says. “We need shower caddies.”

“Shower caddies?” The Wal-Mart guy gives them all a weird look. “All of you? Those things that hang off the faucet in the shower?”

“Nah, that’s what we don’t need,” Sam answers cheerfully. “Our colleges said we needed shower caddies. We don’t know what they are.” He pauses. “Oh, and he needs hand–warmer packets, and this guy needs hand sanitizer.”

“And he needs all your tubes of jock itch cream,” Finn says, jerking his thumb in Sam’s direction. “It’s humid in Louisiana.”

“Uhh, yeah. I’m gonna see if I can get someone from housewares for you,” the Wal-Mart guy says. “Just stand here. I’ll send someone here.”

“Dude!” Sam hisses. “Uncool!”

“Hey, it’s on your list, dude,” Finn says. “Gotta get all the stuff on the list.”

“Do people not playing football get a list like this?” Karofsky looks at Finn. “Did Kurt get one?”

“I don’t think so,” Finn says. “Maybe they just figure that people going to music and acting schools are smarter than we are.”

“Huh.” Sam frowns. “Maybe they are. I mean, these lists are weird.”

“Do you think they’ve had, like, players showing up with nothing at all?” Finn says. 

“I’d hate to think so,” Karofsky shrugs, “but yeah, maybe so?”

Another Wal-Mart employee, a heavy-set woman this time, comes bustling up to them. “You the boys looking for the shower caddy?” she asks.

“Three of them,” Sam quickly says. “We’re not sharing one.”

Karofsky laughs. “Sorry, Evans, you’re not my type.”

The Wal-Mart lady laughs. “Well, I guess that would be sort of silly, one shower caddy for the three of you!” She makes a little ‘come on’ hand gesture. “We’ll go see what we’ve got over in housewares.”

They walk behind her, Sam looking down every aisle that they pass, probably in pursuit of the elusive snapshot for internet glory. All Finn sees are normal looking people, though, and eventually they end up in an aisle with toilet brushes and shower curtain rods and, sure enough, those things that hang from the shower and hold shampoo. 

“This what you boys are looking for?” the Wal-Mart lady asks. 

Karofsky frowns. “No. It’s on our college supply lists. I don’t think…”

“Why do they make _two_ things called ‘shower caddy’?” Finn says. “This shouldn’t be so complicated!”

“I can go and ask somebody,” the Wal-Mart lady offers, “but I think this is the only thing we have that fits that description.”

“Maybe we should just wander around?” Sam suggests, looking awfully eager about the idea.

“Race you down the towel aisle,” Finn says, putting one foot up on the back of his shopping cart.

“Last one there buys pizza!” Sam agrees.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rearranging living spaces; a visit from Connie Dean; spring break is hard work; a suit like Neal Caffrey; beer liberation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Playlist for 3x27 (such as it is)](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8E1A7E9BA12302E0)

Puck doesn’t even notice if the annoying couple comes in on this particular Sunday. When John arrives at fifteen minutes before the end of Puck’s shift, he laughs. “You must’ve had good news.”

“That obvious?” Puck asks ruefully. 

“Well, I know Starbucks is a nice enough place to work, and I know you just got a raise, but.”

Puck laughs. “Yeah. Finally heard from my college yesterday.”

“You got in.”

“I did. Upper West Side, here we come.” Dinner the night before had turned into a session of looking at apartment listings and Puck doing rough budgeting in his head. Assuming the Nav really did sell for around $30,000, and assuming they managed to get financial aid and scholarships to cover most of their tuition and fees, they actually probably _can_ afford a tiny little studio somewhere in the West 70s. And, really, a studio is all they need. Kurt, for his part, had started looking at Ikea’s website again, and even though Puck was technically expected to sleep at his apartment, he’d stayed with Kurt, the two of them not even getting to the house before the other three were asleep. 

“Congratulations,” John says sincerely. “So you’re not long for Lima, then.”

“We’re looking at around the first of August. Be there for a few days in May, though, hopefully can lay some groundwork for transferring jobs, talk to a realtor, that kind of thing.”

“I can’t imagine doing a long-distance move like that,” John admits. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.” Puck grins and turns to filling the last order before he heads out to meet Kurt. It’s almost warm, like the weather really did get the memo that it’s April now, and Kurt’s only wearing one layer, leaning against the door of the Nav. 

“Well hello there, Mr. Puckerman,” Kurt says with a smirk. “You snuck out of my bed this morning.”

“I did,” Puck agrees, returning the smirk and stepping close to Kurt, one foot in between Kurt’s. “Thought you might appreciate sleeping instead of being woken up on behalf of coffee–craving hospital workers.”

“True,” Kurt acknowledges with a slight dip of his head, and Puck takes advantage of that movement to press his lips to Kurt’s. Kurt’s mouth opens just enough for Puck’s tongue to slide into, and Puck’s pretty sure this is the kind of PDA that Kurt would say was unnecessary in the City and maybe foolish in Lima, but he can’t bring himself to care. 

They pull apart slowly and when Puck starts to step away so they can leave, he notices his history teacher standing just a few feet away. “Uh. Hi, Mrs. Vey.”

“Hello, Mr. Puckerman.” She looks vaguely startled but a bit amused as well. “And your, ah.”

“This is my boyfriend, Kurt Hummel. Kurt, this is Mrs. Vey. She has Finn, Brittany, Sam, and I all in first period.”

“Ah, yes.” Kurt grins. “Finn’s mentioned you as well. He’s my stepbrother,” he explains as he shakes Mrs. Vey’s hand. 

“I see.” Mrs. Vey looks more amused than anything, which is probably good. “Well, Mr. Puckerman, it was nice to see you. I’ll see you in the morning for more about trench warfare.”

“I’ll, uh, be looking forward to it?” Puck responds, and she smiles slightly in acknowledgement before heading into the hospital. Puck turns back to Kurt and shrugs. “That’s the second time in four days.”

“We might have a problem.” Kurt smirks and shakes his head. “Are Rina and Hannah expecting us for dinner?”

“Yeah. I figured I should tell them, maybe.”

“Hmm. Probably.” Kurt grins as they climb into the Navigator. “But they aren’t home yet, right?”

“Right.”

 

Hannah decides that the sofa is a perfectly reasonable place to sit and read once she and Rina return, while Rina cooks some kind of frozen dinner and frozen peas and a salad. Which Puck supposes he should be all glad that Hannah wants to read, but she decides that the best spot on the sofa is _between_ he and Kurt, so he’s less enthusiastic. 

“Look at this, Noah!” Hannah leans over, her book open to an illustration. “Isn’t that great?”

“Uh, sure.”

“You bought this book for me!” Hannah protests. 

“Yeah, for _you_ , not me.” Puck shakes his head. 

“Rebecca and her cousin are making a movie about working in a factory!” Hannah explains. 

“Sure.” Puck nods and looks over Hannah’s head at Kurt, shrugging helplessly. Kurt shrugs in return, the expression on his face showing he’s not sure what she’s talking about, either. 

“Dinner’s ready!” Rina announces before Hannah can further perplex them with her American Girl book. 

“Yay!” Hannah jumps up and flings the book on the coffee table. “I’m sooo hungry!”

“Isn’t that your line?” Kurt jokes. 

“She just wishes she was cool like me.” Hannah turns around and sticks her tongue out at Puck. “Hey, be nice to me. I’ve secured you a future husband and all that stuff.”

“What are you talking about now, Noah?” Rina sighs. 

“Just call me the matchmaker or whatever,” Puck grins. “I worked it all out. No worries about her dating anyone this way.”

“I see.” Rina looks confused, and Puck decides now isn’t the time to enlighten her. Hannah is already scowling at him. 

“Long distance threatening is hard,” Puck settles on for a response, shrugging. 

“Ah, yes.” Rina sighs a little. “I suppose so.”

They sit down and start eating and once Puck’s finished his first helping, he puts his fork down. “So, uh. I got in. To Mannes.”

“Which one was that one?” Rina asks. “I can’t remember how to tell the two apart.”

“The one that’s part of the New School. Near Central Park?” Puck offers. “I haven’t gotten the financial aid stuff in the mail yet, but.”

“Does that mean I can walk to Central Park when I visit?” Hannah demands. 

“Not by yourself,” Puck retorts. 

“Of course you can’t walk there by yourself, Hannah,” Rina says, frowning. “That wouldn’t be safe at all. When will you hear about financial aid?”

“The information should come in the mail early this week.” Puck shrugs. “It’s not really a question of getting enough, it’s just a question of how much of it is grants and scholarships.”

“You’ll have to take out loans, I suppose,” Rina sighs. “I hate to think of you starting out with so much debt, but obviously I can’t be of much help with tuition.”

“There’s a lot of scholarships,” Puck can’t help but point out. “Mannes gives scholarships for 25–50% of tuition based on talent instead of need to like, eighty percent of the students.” So it’s actually seventy-five percent; Puck knows what Rina needs to hear. “And there’s some outside scholarships I applied for.”

“Hopefully that will work out, then. Do they help with living expenses, as well?”

“That’s what working is for,” Puck says, forcing himself to sound cheerful. 

“You’ll be able to stay on with Starbucks?” Rina asks. 

“There are five or six within walking distance of Mannes, and that’s just if you head towards the 70s,” Puck answers. “So, yeah, shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll check some of them out in May.”

Well,” Rina says, pursing her lips. “It sounds like you’ve got this all figured out.”

“Plans, anyway.” Puck shrugs and tries not to roll his eyes. Problem with news like this is that he can’t wait until Rina’s in the right mood, because he might have to wait too long. Kurt’s hand rests on his thigh, stroking gently from time to time, and Puck drops his hand on top of Kurt’s, squeezing it. “Looking at heading out around the first of August.”

“You’ll be able to find a place to stay without being there?”

“We can contact a realtor when we’re there in May and do a lot of it remotely,” Kurt answers. “It should work out well.”

“Hmm.” Rina nods in acknowledgement of Kurt’s words, but doesn’t offer any other response. 

“Ooh, are you gonna do a virtual tour?” Hannah asks. 

“If we need to.” Puck shrugs. 

Rina continues to sit silently and eat, not looking at Puck, Kurt, or Hannah. Puck looks at Kurt and shrugs. He never can predict how his mom will react. 

 

Puck follows Kurt up the stairs to deposit a few more clothes in Kurt’s closet, and then they stop at the doorway to Finn’s room. “Dude,” Puck says through the closed door.

“What? Nothing!”

“Uh.” Puck looks at Kurt, who shrugs. “We were just going to raid the freezer before everyone showed up.”

“Oh, ok, yeah. I’ll be down in a minute,” Finn calls out. “So you can just. You can go. I’ll be down. In a minute, I will be.”

“Okay.” Kurt raises an eyebrow but heads towards the door. “We’ll try to keep yours away from Carole.”

“Thanks. You can go do that now!”

“If it were closer to June, I’d think he was wrapping our birthday presents,” Kurt says with a snort as they head down the stairs and into the kitchen. Miraculously, Carole hasn’t gotten ahold of all of the ice cream yet, and they pull out spoons and sit down at the kitchen table.

“Yeah, it’s a little early even for Mother’s Day,” Puck agrees, and they exchange smirks. 

Finn comes down the stairs a few minutes later, his guilty look plastered on his face. “Uh, hey. Ice cream?”

“There is actually some left,” Kurt responds. “We already got you a spoon.”

“Cool, thanks!” Finn accepts the spoon and the ice cream. 

“Avoid any April Fools gags?” Puck asks. 

“I fell for one on Google,” Finn says. “And then the one on the Oatmeal. I always forget what day it is.”

“It’s a bad couple of weeks. Pinching, then jokes.”

Finn shrugs. “The pinching’s not that bad. I always remember green.”

“Your mom trained us early on the wearing green, dude.”

“Yeah, she’s smart that way,” Finn says. “Oh, she told me we can tell everybody else about Pretzel today, if we want to!”

“Ooh!” Kurt grins. “They’re going to be so surprised.”

“Hannah’ll be sad she missed it.”

“Poor Hannah. We can take a video for her,” Finn suggests. 

“Are you kidding? She’ll start to expect videos regularly if we do that!” Puck looks at Finn incredulously. “Dude, you have a lot to learn before you have a _younger_ sibling.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Finn says. “Guess I’ll have the two of you to show me the ropes, though, right?”

“We’ll cram you full of knowledge,” Kurt says solemnly, if a bit distractedly. 

Finn tilts his head a little and looks at Kurt strangely. “Yeah. That’ll, uh, work.”

“Long-distance siblings,” Kurt muses. “We’re going to have to all come back in September.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah.” Finn’s face falls and he sets his spoon down. “I keep forgetting about that.”

“Lima. Madison. Upper West Side.” Puck shrugs. “It’s like a US tour.”

“Parts of the US, anyway,” Finn says. 

“One quadrant,” Kurt offers, then pokes Puck in the side. 

“Ow.” Puck pokes Kurt back and takes a bite of ice cream. “So, uh. I got in. Believe it or not.”

“Oh, wow, dude,” Finn says, his smile slightly sad. “That’s really awesome. Congratulations!”

“Thanks.” Puck shrugs. “Who knows how much it’s going to cost, but. Yeah.” He grins. “I feel sort of like I pulled off some kind of huge con, a bit.”

Finn rolls his eyes. “Yeah, totally conned ’em, dude. No talent at all. That’s why we never let you write the songs for Nationals or anything.”

“You know what my grades were freshmen and sophomore years,” Puck snorts. “Con.”

“I know what they were the last two years, too. Not a con.”

“Are you two really going to argue over this?” Kurt asks, sighing. 

“Yes,” Puck answers, laughing, at the same time Finn says, “No.”

Kurt shakes his head and takes another bite of ice cream. “I swear.”

Before Puck can say anything else, the doorbell rings. “If I get the door, does that count as one of my chores?”

“Only if you have a butler costume,” Finn says.

“Does anyone have a butler costume? I’m pretty sure you don’t answer the door in a butler costume.” Puck pauses. “What if I answer it in my Halloween costume?”

“Those _shorts_ , dude,” Finn says, shaking his head. “Seriously.”

“I’ll take that as a no,” Puck sighs, but he does get up from the table and go to the door. When he swings it open, Mike, Tina, Brittany, and Santana all are standing there. “Welcome.”

“Ice cream? You bring enough for the class?” Santana asks. 

“Nope,” Puck says cheerfully. 

“Is there enough for me?” Brittany asks. “I’m not the whole class.”

“Sorry, Britt,” Puck shakes his head. “You could see if Carole bought extra, though. If she hasn’t eaten it already.”

“She’s good at finding it,” Finn says. “She’s like an ice cream detective.”

“I think you should get a refrigerator for your dorm _now_ , and we can hide our food upstairs,” Kurt says. 

“Hey, sweet! That would work,” Finn says. “I’ll ask Burt about that later.”

“Why is your mom finding all the ice cream?” Tina looks puzzled.

“Pretzel,” Kurt says, fighting a smirk. 

The doorbell rings again, and Puck walks out to help Sam carry Artie up the stairs as Quinn and Mercedes make their way inside. “Are we meeting next week?” Mercedes asks. 

“Yes,” Finn says, his voice firm. “Nationals don’t care if it’s spring break.”

“Well, all right.” Mercedes sighs a little but doesn’t complain any further. Mike looks like he’s about to say something when the doorbell rings again, and Puck walks back to the door to let Rachel in.

Rachel breezes past him with a bright smile and then stops in the doorway to the living room. “Hello, everyone!”

“Hey, Rach,” Finn says. “Finally made it, huh?”

“Yes.” Rachel seems to deflate slightly, then straightens again. “I had to change my attire!”

“Girl!” Mercedes squeals. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

“Yes!” Rachel jumps in place. “It does! I found out on Friday evening!”

“That’s great!” Quinn says. 

“I’m _so_ excited!” Rachel gushes. “Juilliard! I mean, of course they want me! But I feel like I need to pinch myself!”

“That’s terrific,” Tina says warmly. “I’m sure your dads are thrilled, too.”

“They are! They’ll come visit often of course!”

“Yay! Everybody is going to college!” Finn says. “Let’s start the rehearsal now to celebrate!”

Puck snorts. Really, they should all know to worry when Finn sounds that sarcastic. 

“Before we start, though, I have an important announcement to make,” Finn says. “So, everybody be quiet. It’s important. An important announcement.”

“And eventually it’ll be noisy.” Kurt grins. 

“My mom is having a Pretzel,” Finn says, putting his hands on his hips and grinning proudly. 

“A Pretzel?” Rachel tilts her head. “What’s a pretzel?”

“Finn, you can’t use code words when you make these kinds of announcements,” Kurt chides him, still grinning. 

“Oh, right! Right, Kurt’s right,” Finn says. “Kurt’s always right. A _baby_ , is what mom’s having. We call it Pretzel, but it’s a baby.”

“A baby? Really?” Tina looks stunned. 

“Guys.” Rachel shakes her head. “What day is today?”

“Sunday?” Santana raises an eyebrow. “That’s why we’re all here, Berry. What’s that got to do with the scary thought of Hudson being a big brother?”

“I’m gonna be a great big brother. Shut up.”

“It’s April first!” Rachel sighs. “Clearly this is an April Fools joke, and Kurt is participating.”

“It’s not a joke,” Kurt insists. “It’s Pretzel.”

“They _were_ talking about a pretzel or something a few weeks ago,” Mike says slowly. 

“Finn, I’m sure we all appreciate the attempt at humor,” Quinn says, in her sweet–but–not–really voice, “but you’re going to have to come up with something a little more original to fool us.”

“It’s not a joke,” Kurt repeats. “Really. September. A baby. We have mental images now, sadly.”

“I’ll go get mom,” Finn sighs. “She’ll tell you.” He turns and heads upstairs, and reappears a few moments later with Carole trailing behind him, an odd look on her face. “Mom, tell them about Pretzel.”

Carole’s hand is admittedly resting on the—so far—small bump she’s sporting, but she manages to look innocent for a few moments. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“ _Mom_!” Finn sputters. “Pretzel. The _baby_. Tell them.”

“The baby? Finn, I know I’ve been putting on weight, but—”

“Carole!” Puck protests from the doorway. “Harsh.”

Finn looks absolutely wounded, his head tipped to the side in disbelief. “Mom. That’s… _mom_!”

“Dad!” Kurt calls. “Come boast of your progeny!”

“Really, Kurt. You boys got your father involved in this ridiculousness?” Rachel looks quite disapproving. 

“Which one of you am I boasting of?” Burt asks, and he comes thudding into the room. 

“The smallest one,” Kurt says dryly. 

“Well, he or she doesn’t do all that much yet,” Burt says, shrugging. “Just sorta swims around in there like a sea monkey, but I reckon he or she is real good at that by now.”

“Thank you! See?” Finn says, pointing at Burt and then at Carole’s stomach. “See? I’m not joking. I’m not making this up!”

Carole shoots Burt a look like she’s disappointed that he’s not playing along with her. “Finn,” she sighs again.

“September 22,” Kurt interjects before she can say anything else. “Also.” He levels a look at Rachel. “Well.” He stops, seeming to think better of what he was about to say. “Pretzel’s just what we’ve been calling him or her.”

“That would make sense,” Sam concedes. “You guys have talked about a pretzel like it was alive or something.”

“Ok, ok, go away now, mom,” Finn says, still sounding extremely frustrated. “We’re really rehearsing now.”

“All right. I’ll just take my pregnant self back upstairs,” Carole says placidly as she leaves the room. 

“Carole!” Kurt says, sounding almost disappointed as he shakes his head. “There. She said it,” he addresses Quinn and Rachel. “Happy now?”

Quinn frowns. “Yes, fine. Not a joke. Didn’t Finn say we’re rehearsing now?”

“Yes. Rehearsing.” Finn nods. “We should figure out the song order.”

“We can’t do ‘This Is War’ and ‘Somebody Told Me’ back to back,” Tina offers. “At least, I don’t think the majority of us could handle it, even with working out. Assuming everyone is working out.”

“ _Is_ everybody working out?” Finn asks. “I’m lifting weights. Who else is working out?”

A few hands go up right away, Kurt and Puck’s amongst them. It’s not like they could get away with not doing it. Surprisingly, everyone but Mercedes and Brittany raise their hands. 

“Britt, we have Cheerios practice every day,” Santana says patiently. 

“That’s not working out. That’s practicing,” Brittany says.

“I’ve been trying to work it into my schedule,” Mercedes says.

“We could work out together,” Tina offers, smiling. “If you want.”

“Mercedes, you can’t half–ass this,” Finn says. “You’ve gotta do the exercise, too. Remember Regionals? You don’t want to look like those guys!”

“All right, all right,” Mercedes agrees. “Sure, Tina, that sounds fine.”

“Good. That’s great,” Finn says. “Let’s try ‘This is War’ and then the duet, then we’ll do ‘Somebody Told Me’ at the end. If we don’t like it, we’ll run through it another way after.”

 

It takes longer than usual for everyone to disappear after rehearsal, because apparently once they process the news, Carole having a baby is deemed to be Very Important News that has to be dissected thoroughly. Considering how the three of them managed to freak out over it, and buy up all the diet pop in Allen County, Puck figures he shouldn’t be too surprised. He’s still relieved when the door finally closes behind the last of them, even if there’s only an hour before Burt will shuffle by and tell him it’s time to go home. 

Puck flops onto Kurt’s bed, ignoring the small snort from Kurt that means he should have flopped more gently. He just closes his eyes and waits for Kurt to lie down next to him, which he does less than thirty seconds later. “I can’t believe Carole did that,” Kurt says after a minute. “I know it’s April Fools Day, but.”

“Yeah.” Puck sighs. “Maybe it’s, I don’t know. Crazy pregnancy hormones.”

“Hmm. Maybe so.” Kurt shrugs a little and then turns, burying his face against Puck’s neck. “Everyone was being mean enough to Finn already, though.”

“I half expect to walk into school tomorrow and Brown be sitting there to hit on him again.” Puck shakes his head. 

“That goes beyond mean to insufferably cruel.”

Puck laughs. “Yeah, probably so.”

“No one even asked if you’d heard anything,” Kurt says after another moment, the frown clear in his voice.

“Are you kidding? Rachel wouldn’t’ve let me answer if they’d managed to get the question out. It might steal her thunder.” Puck shrugs. “I mean, yeah, it’s incredibly hard to get into Juilliard, but I think printing out the stats on gold star paper was a little over the top.”

“Just a bit,” Kurt says dryly. “But that is everyone. Everyone’s going somewhere.”

“Two to California, two to Boston, one to Florida, one to Georgia, one to Louisiana, one who gives a fuck, one to Wisconsin, three to New York,” Puck lists off, trying to remember where everyone’s headed. “Who’s closest? Finn or Mercedes?”

“Mercedes, maybe?” Kurt murmurs. “Straight shot down 75, anyway. Not quite as straight a drive over to Madison.”

“Not going to be a lot of coming home on weekends for anyone.”

“No. New homes,” Kurt adds, sighing contentedly. “You should stay here. It’s not like your mom’s going to notice.”

“Yeah, but your dad might add rent on top of the chores,” Puck says ruefully. 

“Ah. True.” Kurt uncurls a little. “Then go, before I change my mind. If I change my mind, I won’t be held accountable for my actions.”

“I _am_ a bad influence,” Puck smirks, sliding off the bed. He leans back down to kiss Kurt’s forehead, then his nose, then his chin. When Kurt opens his eyes and glares at Puck, Puck laughs and brings their mouths together. “Sleep, blue eyes.”

“Be good, baby.”

“I’m always good.”

 

Thankfully, Monday morning starts much more quietly than Friday did, even though things are still at least somewhat tense in the hallways. When Puck walks into history, he nods at Mrs. Vey, who gives him a knowing smile in return. Yeah, they’re going to have to work on that. Or just forget about hiding it. 

Mrs. Strandberg has renewed vigor for the fight against ‘moral degradation’ as she calls it during her impromptu speech at the beginning of the period, which makes Puck glad he didn’t notice if that couple was at Starbucks the day before. He has the sneaking suspicion that they go to the same hate factory. 

English is full of gushing about _Cat on a Hot Tin Roof_ which was a mess of a way to waste a Friday evening. Most of the audience was McKinley students, which only confirmed in Puck’s head that this was some kind of set up to boost ticket sales. Kurt had grimaced at the acting, and Puck had just nodded his agreement. It had been bad, all of it, but his English teacher seems to think that it was some of the best theatre to hit Lima in years, so Puck tries not to let his opinion show on his face. He doesn’t exactly participate in the discussion, either, but nothing is perfect. At this point, he figures as long as he scrapes by with a ‘C’, Mannes isn’t going to change their mind. 

Halfway through the class, anyway, he remembers the melody that came to him in the middle of Mrs. Strandberg’s textbook reading, and he pulls out a notebook to transcribe it, before he blurts out that the performance was crap. He has to wonder if his teacher has a kid or a cousin or a kid sister in it. 

Somehow he’s unsurprised when Rachel dashes from the room as soon as English is over, and by the time he makes his own way to the choir room, Rachel has cornered Mr. Schue, waving one of her gold–star sheets of paper. “I made an addendum for you and Ms. Pillsbury, in case you ever again have a student of my caliber, with suggestions for how best to guide their high school career and application process!”

“Well, uh, thanks, Rachel,” Schue says with a pained smile, taking the offered stapled pack of more gold–star paper. 

“You’re quite welcome!” Rachel beams at him. With that, she finally leaves him alone, and Puck honestly feels a little sorry for the man. 

“So, I didn’t plan an assignment for today because we’re only meeting once this week,” Schue says without preamble. “Next week, let’s do songs about spring, warm weather, and/or springing foward. Work in trios or quartets, please, so you’ll all be able to perform on either Thursday or Friday.” Once everyone’s acknowledged the assignment, Schue continues. “So, does anyone have something they’d like to perform today?”

Rachel looks chagrined, like she wishes she’d thought to prepare a song, but didn’t. Puck doesn’t even want to imagine what she’d perform. Is there a song called ‘I Think I Am The Best Ever’? Puck nods at Mr. Schue after a moment and picks up his guitar. “Yeah, I have something.”

“Great! Let’s hear it.”

Puck strums a few chords first, pausing to consider the fact that ten of the thirteen people in the room must have just assumed he didn’t get in. Yeah, Rachel was overwhelming and overbearing the night before, but no one’s asked. They all know what the deadlines are. “Yeah, so this is Avett Brothers,” Puck says before starting. 

_There's a darkness upon me that's flooded in light  
In the fine print they tell me what's wrong and what's right_

Bonus points, Puck decides, to everyone who looks utterly confused. 

_When nothing is owed or deserved or expected  
And your life doesn't change by the man that's elected  
If you're loved by someone, you're never rejected  
Decide what to be and go be it_

_There was a dream and one day I could see it  
Like a bird in a cage I broke in and demanded that somebody free it  
And there was a kid with a head full of doubt  
So I'll scream ’til I die and the last of those bad thoughts are finally out_

When Puck finishes, he pulls off his guitar and sits down, slumping into the seat between Finn and Kurt. “An interesting choice,” Schue says. “Any particular meaning behind it, Puck?”

Puck sighs. “A bit.” He doesn’t volunteer any other information. It’s good to know that no matter what he does, in Lima he’s still going to be Puck the screw-up to most of the population. 

“It means he got in,” Finn says. “Only he didn’t bring, like, engraved announcements.”

“Or a glitter pen shirt,” Kurt mutters under his breath.

“That’s great, Puck!” Artie says. “Which school?”

“Mannes. They didn’t post until Saturday afternoon,” Puck says wryly. 

“Did that dark-haired girl you met get in?” Mercedes ask.

“Uh, yeah,” Puck answers dubiously, because that’s a weird question. 

“This is very exciting, Noah! I’m sure your mother is excited!”

“Well, Hannah is, anyway,” Puck answers Rachel. 

“Oh, man, I’m gonna have Stevie complaining Baton Rouge isn’t as exciting as Manhattan, aren’t I?” Sam groans. 

“Hey, you and your free hat.”

“Yeah, well, that Hard Rock T-shirt was already deemed cooler than the free hat.”

“I can’t help it if I’m the coolest big brother in their class.” Puck shrugs. “You’ll have to step it up with your impressions.”

Sam shakes his head. “Ouch.”

“You’ll live.”

“Well, well done, Puck,” Schue says. “Does anyone else wish to perform today?”

No one responds, so Schue launches into a short lecture about… something, which Puck more or less tunes out completely. It might even be that deportment thing for Nationals. They all nod and then, thankfully, the bell rings. 

Puck watches most of them leave before heaving himself out of his chair. “It’s always good,” he says quietly to Kurt, “to know where you stand.”

 

Kurt drops Puck off at his apartment before driving to Burt’s shop, and Puck is passing through the lobby when the building manager appears. “Oh, good, I was hoping I’d see either you or your mother today.”

“Oh, hey. What’s up?” Puck vaguely thinks that maybe he should be less informal, but who knows. 

“I know when I spoke to you before you said your mom and sister might want to move to a smaller apartment this summer?” Puck nods. “Well, it doesn’t look like there’s going to be a vacancy until at least October. However, I do have one apartment that’s going to be available in May.”

“The end of May?”

“No, the beginning,” she says slowly. “I know that isn’t ideal, since you are, obviously, still living here, but. I wanted to offer it to your mother first.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Puck answers, “but tentatively? Yeah. She’ll take it.” Puck isn’t sure what that means for him—he was _joking_ about having to pay Burt rent, after all—but October is a long time to wait, and he worries about Rina not following through, honestly. If it’s the beginning of May, he’ll be there to help move everything and make sure it actually happens. 

“Are you sure?”

Puck shrugs. “Yeah, you know. Air mattress or something. Stay with friends more. It’s cool. Like I said, I’ll talk to Mom. Have her find you later this week?”

“Yes, that’s perfect.” Another nod. “Well, have a good day.”

“Yeah, you too.” Puck heads up the stairs, mail in hand, and pulls the thick envelope from Mannes out of the rest of the mail before setting it on the counter. He walks into his bedroom and looks around with a sigh. It’s a good thing he started going through everything before now. Maybe his mom will let him keep the money from selling the furniture on craigslist. 

After dinner, while Rina takes Hannah to dance class, he and Kurt sit on his bed. “So. You know how I was joking about paying rent?”

“Yes?” Kurt looks at him quizzically.

“Manager stopped me in the lobby. There’s a two bedroom available at the beginning of May, but the next one isn’t until October, and of course that’s probably a maybe, not a definite.”

“So you told her yes, pending your mother signing anything, but now…”

“Now I’m out of luck in a month, yeah,” Puck snorts. “I was thinking, I’m already at your place three nights a week. If we skew it a little more, I can deal with an air mattress two or three nights. We’re not going to have much room in New York, so, uh. I dunno. Early preparation?”

Kurt laughs. “Right. Well, I should start clearing things out, too. The more we get rid of, the more cash we have for stuff from Ikea.”

“Yeah. That’s the plan, anyway.”

“I’ll talk to Dad, then. Probably not tonight since you’ll be there.”

“Point.” Puck lies back and picks up the envelope from Mannes. “Is it okay if I don’t really want to know this stuff yet?”

“We should wait until I have mine, anyway,” Kurt nods. “And don’t you have a couple of outside scholarships you applied for?”

“Yeah. In theory that just reduces something on the school’s package, but who knows. I checked the little box that I didn’t want work–study money because I can make more elsewhere. I just would like to use the money from work to, you know, eat.”

“Eating. So overrated.” Kurt shakes his head. “Starving college students, isn’t that the trope?”

“Starving college students, starving artists. One or the other.”

 

“Big plans for spring break?” Sam asks when Puck gets to history the next morning. 

Puck shakes his head. “Nah. Working my regular hours. Going through stuff to decide what’s going to New York.”

“I hear you. You keeping anything here?”

“Nah, Mom and Hannah can move to a smaller apartment, you know?”

“Yeah, exactly. I mean, Stacey and Stevie are still young enough they can share a room, really.”

“Hey, speaking of Stevie. Your parents ever thought about putting him in one of the magnet schools?”

“Eh, Dad and I talked about the arts one a few times. Why?”

“Thinking about having Mom put Hannah in it. Hannah’ll balk if she doesn’t have anyone going with her. But she wants dance classes and piano lessons and everything, and…” He trails off, knowing Sam will understand. 

“I grok you. Yeah, okay. I’ll talk to Dad again. Maybe we can convince the kids it was their idea.” Sam laughs. 

“If we pull that one off, we should start selling beachfront property in Nebraska.”

 

When they finish rehearsing during fourth period, Santana walks over to Quinn and threads her arm through Quinn’s. “You’re coming to PFLAG, Q. I don’t know what all your bullshit is about, but once upon a time, it was you, me, and Britt. And that’s how we’re ending it. Got it?”

Quinn looks startled, but doesn’t pull away. After a moment, she nods slowly. “Got it,” she agrees. 

Which is how they all end up walking towards PFLAG in a group, and Puck’s not sure how he feels about that. Further contemplation is cut short, though, by the reminder that the reporter is going to be there. Connie Dean and her camerawoman are already outside the room, and Tina pushes forward, snagging Kurt by the wrist as she walks past. 

“Hello, Ms. Dean,” Tina greets her. “I hope you found us without too much trouble.”

“Not too much. Your principal wasn’t exactly forthcoming, but luckily, your guidance counselor saw us and recognized us,” Connie says. 

“As Tina mentioned before, we typically do introductions first,” Kurt says. “People often share why they are here, so you’ll need to come in as soon as those are concluded.”

“That’s fine. We’ll wait out here until one of you lets us know it’s fine to come in,” Connie agrees. 

Kurt nods an acknowledgement before they all continue into the room, and Puck probably isn’t all that subtle as he watches Kurt cross the room. Not that Kurt’s not always _dressed_ , but he’s got on a full suit, shirt, tie, pocket square, hat. Everything. Puck lets himself smirk for a minute, because _he_ is the one that got to tie that tie. 

The room is packed, all of the A/V club members that have ever shown, plus all the underclassmen and a few new faces. Most of the regulars take their usual seats, though when Brown enters, he flops into the chair next to Finn, smirking. 

“How’s the hand, Hudson? Booboo all better?” Brown asks Finn, though Puck notices Brown giving Kurt a sideways glance out of the corner of his eye. 

Kurt raises one eyebrow, like he’s asking if Brown _really_ wants to play this game. Puck just turns to Brown and scowls. “Beat it.”

“Just talking,” Brown says, sprawling back in the chair, a little too comfortable. “No harm in it.”

“You want to test that?” Puck asks mildly. “I’m thinking the answer is actually ‘no’, so take your ego and go sit over there where there’s an extra chair for it.”

“Ouch,” Finn says. “Sorry, Brown. Better do what he says.” He shrugs. “Thanks for asking about my hand, though.”

Brown sighs and shakes his head. “Never did anything to you people,” he says, standing up. “Seriously. No appreciation of aesthetics.” Brown skulks over to the empty chair next to Casey and flings himself into it, dramatically, where Casey just giggles at him. 

“You’re awful,” Finn says. “Poor Brown. He was being nice.”

Puck laughs. “Yeah. Nice.”

“Let’s get started,” Kurt says, voice raised slightly. “As most of you no doubt saw, we have a reporter here, who will be observing and filming the meeting once we’ve finished introductions. If you are uncomfortable with being shown in the footage, please talk to Ms. Dean before leaving. Also, I believe that she wants to do some individual interviews, so if you are willing to be interviewed, stay after the meeting concludes. Ms. Pillsbury will give out passes to those who need them.” Kurt looks around the room. “So, let’s quickly do our introductions. I’m Kurt, as most of you know by now.”

“Puck.” 

“Finn.”

There’s nothing particularly stunning in the introductions, though Puck does notice that Brown’s sister is wearing a Cheerios uniform now and Santana looks at her almost maternally, and _that_ is a frightening thought on its own. Brown seems to agree, glaring at his sister and Santana both. 

“All right. Before we get Ms. Dean, we’ll be talking about a variety of topics. The Day of Silence, the school board meeting, a possible second movie night, and a bit more about discrimination in various forms.” Kurt looks at Ms. Pillsbury and nods, and Ms. P goes to the door, beckoning Connie Dean and the camerawoman inside. Connie takes a chair in the back of the room and the camerawoman stands next to her. 

One of the girls sitting near Mandy raises her hand. “What’s the Day of Silence, again?”

“It’s a day to call attention to the silencing effects of anti-GLBT bullying and harassment in schools,” Kurt explains. “People participate either by being silent or serving as vocal allies. Obviously, the more who are silent, the more effective, but certainly teachers, for example, need to be vocal allies.”

“When is it?” Casey asks. “And is it _all_ day?”

“It’s Friday, April 20, and yes, it’s all day. Most groups follow it up with a ‘Night of Noise’ gathering as I mentioned before, and we can certainly do something similar.”

“I’ve already got the crepe paper streamers,” Brown says. Rick and Alicia exchange a look.

“Great. We’ll decide on a venue by next meeting.”

“How do you know if you’re better off being a, what’d you call it? Vocal ally? Or if you should be silent?” Finn asks. “Is it, like, whether or not you think you can go all day not talking?”

“No. Really, the idea behind vocal allies is for people who, for instance, might have a class presentation that day, or otherwise will require the use of their voice at some point that is non-negotiable.”

“So after the Day of Silence here, we will have something as a group afterwards?” Sam asks, like he’s trying to clarify.

“Exactly,” Kurt nods. “Any other questions?” When none are forthcoming, Kurt nods and moves on to the next topic. “So, who would be interested in another movie night?”

“Can we do happy movies this time?” Brittany asks. “Maybe some lady movies?”

“Do you have any suggestions?” Kurt looks at Brittany. “Lady movies are not exactly my forte.”

“There’s _But I’m A Cheerleader_ ,” Santana points out. 

“I’m guessing _Queer as Folk_ is out,” Tina laughs. 

“I still don’t like Brian Kinney,” Puck mutters, and Finn looks at Puck and shakes his head.

“What’s that movie? Why is it out?” Casey asks. 

“It’s a television show that was originally broadcast on Showtime.” Kurt looks like he’s fighting back laughter. “It’s quite explicit for a television show.”

“What about that one with the Mormon?” Lauren says. “ _Latter Days_. That one’s pretty hot, but the story’s good, too.”

Kurt nods. “I have that one. Santana, do you have _But I’m a Cheerleader_?”

Santana inclines her head towards Brittany. “She does. We’ll bring it.”

“Where are we having it this time?” Brown asks. “I don’t think I’m up for a repeat of hosting.”

“Why not?” Alicia asks sweetly. “It would be so convenient. For me.”

“Pretty sure Ma’s not gonna want you watching those movies. Maybe I’ll just let her know about that.”

“Ma probably don’t want you getting any ideas about chasing down the Mormon boys that knock on the door.”

Brown looks thoughtful. “Now, there _is_ an idea! Thanks, Alicia.”

“We could probably do it at our house,” Finn offers. “Our parents are used to having a lot of people over, because of glee.”

“We can even get the food _just_ before it starts,” Kurt nods. 

“Are you sure that’s not too much work for your mom, Finn?” Rachel asks, pulling a worried face.

Finn snorts. “Oh, yeah, sure. _Now_ Pretzel’s real.”

“What day? This Saturday is spring break, but perhaps the next Saturday?”

“The fourteenth?” Rachel cries. “But that’s Titanic Day!”

“Making choices is difficult,” Finn says, his face the picture of fake sympathy. “I guess you’ll just have to hope you’re making the right one.”

Rachel makes a face that’s clearly supposed to mean something, but Puck isn’t sure what. “All right, Tina, the school board meeting?”

“We’re on the agenda, which is good. We’re also getting publicity, obviously.” She looks at Connie Dean and smiles. “However, we’ve also been the topic of discussion within some groups that aren’t supportive of our efforts, so I’m sure we’re going to see more attendance, both for and against. Does anyone know of specific groups planning to attend?”

“Yeah, my church – the Lutheran one, here downtown. There’s a group of people going, something about the more liberal religious congregations in Lima?” Karofsky says.

“Yeah, my church, too,” Mandy nods. “We’re Episcopalian. Someone from the synagogue, though, started it.” A lot of them turn to look at Rachel, who shrugs slightly. 

“It actually wasn’t my dads this time,” Rachel says. “It was—” She pauses. “Ms. Rubin. One of the older members.”

“Oh, yeah. Can’t argue with Ms. Rubin,” Puck can’t resist saying. 

Finn shakes his head, wide-eyed, but Puck can see the hint of a smile. “She’s terrifying.”

“Some people that I know in Dayton are going to come up for the meeting,” Kurt offers. 

Casey looks really excited, and bounces in place a little, but doesn’t say anything. Brown raises an eyebrow, though, and asks, “Who’s coming?”

“Not sure if your friend will make it,” Kurt says sweetly. “But I know April is, so you’ll enjoy that.”

“She sure is an enjoyable girl,” Brown agrees, equally sweetly. “Bright future ahead of her in the correctional arts.”

“She’s a good dancer,” Finn says. 

“Oh, good, we should have lots of support, then,” Tina smiles. “I’ll start working on our list of speakers. If you didn’t volunteer before and you want to volunteer this time, let me know; also let me know if you did volunteer but have changed your mind.”

“Great. Thanks, Tina.” Kurt flashes her a smile. “Now, I thought we could talk a bit about discrimination and its various forms. Of course, what we’re fighting in terms of school policy is a type of discrimination, but not all of it is institutionalized or overt.”

“Marriage,” Mandy says quietly. 

“Adoption,” Rachel offers. 

“ _Just_ words,” Santana says with a slight roll of her eyes. 

“Sports,” Finn blurts out, then looks surprised that he said anything. Karofsky nods his agreement.

Kurt nods after each statement. “And where there are actual laws, of course, they vary greatly from state to state.” He pauses momentarily, like something’s just occurred to him, and then continues. “Let’s talk about some of these. Words. They’re used alongside everything else.”

“And we’re supposed to _ignore_ them.” Santana snorts. “Do people not listen to the ridiculous things coming out of their own mouths? When St. James told Hudson he danced like a zombie, do you think Hudson just shook it off like it was nothing?” She shakes her head. “But we’re all supposed to shake these things off. It doesn’t make any sense.” Santana pauses and doesn’t look at anyone. “I think, for me, the worst one is ‘lesbo’. Amazing how they can pack so much disdain into two syllables.”

“They aren’t particularly creative,” Kurt agrees. “But then, they don’t have to be.”

“It’s a pretty long list of words,” Rick says. “And you hear all of ’em in a week, depending on who you’re around. Couple of guys I used to know, I think they could probably list off two or three dozen different insults.”

Puck shakes his head a little, because he still doesn’t really like thinking about that list. “It is a long list,” Kurt concedes. “Though many of them are what I think of as variations on a theme. But I think the use of words is what ties in to so much other discrimination, like in sports for instance.”

One of the cheerleaders, not one Puck knows by name, says, “We hear it all the time. Not from the football players, but from the guys in the other sports, and from other teams, too.” She shakes her head. “Oh, and the boys’ basketball team? I heard them calling the girls’ team a bunch of dykes, but I think they’re just jealous the girls have had a better season.”

That, at least, is probably true, because the boys’ basketball team at McKinley is pathetic. 

“It’s a psych-out thing,” Brown says. “Trying to tear down the other team, get to them. You wanna make them seem less–than, what do you call ’em? It’s ‘fags’ or ‘queers’, right?” He screws his face up in disgust. “And it’s not like it’s even about who you actually think they’re getting it on with. Doesn’t even have anything to do with that. The words alone are ugly enough to make you feel less–than.”

“And if you want to be extra less–than, make sure to imply which ‘position’ is taken,” Kurt says disdainfully. “Because it must be even more disgusting to be the recipient.” Kurt looks over at some of the girls. “Says some interesting things about how these people feel about women in general, too.”

Brown nods his head, looking impressed. “Big brass balls, man. Big. Big and brass.”

“You’re right.” Tina sounds a little surprised. “I never thought about it that way, but you’re right. Why is it ‘worse’?”

“Right!” Casey pipes up. “I mean, it’s not like being on the other end makes you any less gay or anything. Because, um, still both _guys_.” Casey looks a little surprised with himself, though a little pleased, too.

“And yet, people want to know.” Kurt shrugs. “You can’t convince me at least half of the people in this room wouldn’t ask if they thought I wouldn’t strangle them.” He smiles sweetly. 

Next to Puck, Finn proceeds to make his strangled noise, which sounds even more bizarre mixed with the weird laugh also coming out of Finn. Lauren gives Finn a calculating look.

“Is this really the topic of interest?” Lauren asks. “I’d think it was more a question of _if_ you are, not _how_.” She smirks a little. “People are so nosy about that kind of thing.”

“They are,” Kurt agrees. “But we’ve gotten a little off topic. What we’re essentially saying is that a lot of discrimination is rooted in language and attitudes, even the institutionalized discrimination.”

“The idea of words never hurting, that’s the biggest crock of sh— crap,” Karofsky corrects himself, looking towards the camera briefly. “It’s the words that do the most damage. Unless the language changes…” he trails off. 

“And we’re full circle,” Kurt finishes. “Back to the Day of Silence, and the reason it was originally conceived.” He glances around the room. “Any other comments?”

“We should get some of those stickers for mouths. For people that have a hard time shutting up,” Santana says, shooting a look at Rachel. “Like in those NOH8 shoots.”

“I like stickers,” Brittany says. “You get them for voting and giving blood, so you should get them for not talking, too.”

“All right.” Kurt nods. “Well, we’ll have stickers and cards for the Day of Silence at our next meeting. If you’re willing to be interviewed by Ms. Dean, please stay afterwards.”

About half the attendees scurry out immediately, a few making their way towards Connie Dean, who seems to have taken copious notes in addition to her footage. Karofsky steers Casey out the door, keeping Casey as far from Connie Dean as possible. 

“You staying?” Puck asks Kurt, tilting his head towards the reporter, and Kurt nods. “I’m gonna go on.” He looks around the room and shrugs. “Be good.”

Kurt smirks slightly. “I’m always good.” Puck turns to leave the room, noting that Tina, Brittany, Santana, Brown, Lauren, Artie, Rick, and Alicia are all waiting to talk to Connie Dean. Well, either Connie Dean will really help, or stir things up even more.

Or both. 

 

Kurt detours to the living room once he’s snagged some hummus and chips from the kitchen. “Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, kid. What’s up?”

“The second floor?” Kurt raises both eyebrows and grins. “Want some?” He holds out the hummus and the bag of chips. Burt takes a few chips, but waves away the hummus. 

“That stuff smells weird and I’m still not entirely sure what it’s made out of,” Burt explains. 

“Beans, Dad. I’ve explained it before. This kind has extra garlic and red peppers in it, both.” Kurt gets a big scoop on one of the pita chips. “And the pita chips are whole-grain. It’s good for you, but it doesn’t taste like birdseed like you worry about.”

“It doesn’t taste like beans,” Burt grumbles. “I don’t know what it tastes like.”

“It tastes like hummus.”

“Well, I’ll take your word for that,” Burt says. “How’d your day go?”

“That reporter came to PFLAG. I think it went well.” Kurt takes another bite, thinking. “Dr. Venko said Puck doesn’t have to come back for three weeks, so that’s good. I’m ignoring the thick envelope that says ‘Department of Financial Aid’ until Thursday.”

“Why Thursday? Isn’t that something we should get rolling on?”

“First day of spring break, remember?” Kurt answers. “By the time I have class and work tomorrow.” He shrugs. “They’re _numbers_ , Dad.”

Burt laughs. “Yeah, they are. Me and Carole can sit down and go over all of it with you, though. And hey, that’s good news about Puck and his doctor. I’m glad to hear it’s working out so well for him.”

“It is.” Kurt nods. “I have a question for you, but I have to explain a bit first, so—”

“So let you talk until you’re done before I get worked up about it?” Burt asks, wryly. “I know how this works, Kurt. Go on and tell me.”

Kurt is pretty sure that this is _not_ what his dad is expecting, but there’s no way to ease into it. “Okay. Puck has Rina convinced to move to a smaller apartment this summer, a two–bedroom place. I forget how much less it is, but enough that Puck thinks it’ll make a nice difference for Hannah. So he’s been talking to the manager of the building about it, off and on, but she stopped Puck yesterday and there’s a little bit of a problem.” Kurt pauses. “There’s not going to be a two–bedroom apartment available this summer. October, maybe, but of course Puck worries about Rina not taking it if he’s not there, or having trouble moving. Or, well. There’s one available at the beginning of May.” Kurt decides taking another bite of hummus is a good plan. “Before Puck talks to Rina about it, he wants to have a plan. And, you know, he doesn’t want to totally leave Hannah, but sleeping on an air mattress more than two or three nights a week isn’t the most comfortable thing.”

“Mmhmm,” Burt says, nodding slowly. “And your question?”

“I know you’ve said it’s fine for Puck to spend a few nights a week here, but. This would more or less be keeping everything here.”

“Everything including Puck,” Burt says.

“Generally he doesn’t fit in a box,” Kurt says dryly. 

“Well, where does he fit?” Burt asks. “Will all his stuff even have enough space in your room?”

“He had already been going through some stuff,” Kurt answers. “And, well, I need to start.” He sighs a little. “I’m assuming that you’ll need one of our bedrooms for a nursery, too.”

“We’ve been talking about it, but we didn’t want either of you boys to feel like you couldn’t come home if you needed to,” Burt says. “Or that we were choosing one of you over the other to oust from his bedroom.”

“Redo both rooms?” Kurt suggests. “Make one a guest room, I suppose. You can’t keep Pretzel in your bedroom with all of his or her stuff while our rooms are mostly empty.”

“Yeah, that might work. I’ll talk to Carole about that,” Burt says. “You think Finn’ll get too upset about having his room turned into a nursery or a guest room? I mean, of the two of you, he’s… you know.” Burt shrugs. 

Kurt laughs, ignoring the last sentence. “Not if it’s the nursery. He’s very excited. Just promise me that you don’t let him choose the colors for it.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s really something we’d consider, but good idea about the nursery.”

“His room gets more sunlight, too. Which would be better to make sure Pretzel’s warm enough.”

“You’re right,” Burt says. “I think that would probably be the better way to go about it. Thanks, Kurt. Good suggestion.”

“Not a problem.” Kurt closes up the bag of chips. “And as for the other thing…?”

“Puck’s stuff? Yeah, that’s fine,” Burt sighs. 

“We’ll try to work out some kind of actual plan regarding what nights,” Kurt offers. “Since it’s not quite what we originally thought.”

“Yeah, definitely not what we originally thought,” Burt says, “but the kid can’t sleep on an air mattress in his living room and work and go to school at the same time. That doesn’t sound like a healthy plan.”

“No,” Kurt agrees, pursing his lips. “He’ll probably talk to you and Carole about Hannah sooner or later.”

Burt frowns. “Everything okay with her? I like that kid.”

“Hannah’s fine,” Kurt reassures him. “Puck’s just – not worried, exactly, but. Next year.”

“Ah. Yeah. I gotcha. Tell him any time he needs to talk to us, we’ll make the time for it.”

Kurt nods and stands. “Thanks, Dad. I’m going to go crash now.”

“Night, Kurt. Thanks for the heads up about all of the Puckerman excitement.”

Kurt grins. “Life’s never dull around them.”

 

When Puck finally gets home on Wednesday evening, his mom’s watching one of her crime shows and Hannah’s in bed, which makes sense, since a customer made a huge mess out of one of the displays five minutes before he was supposed to close. One mug breaking would have been bad enough, and he probably could have told the guy not to worry about the cost, but after fifteen minutes of nervous hovering and still finding ceramic shards everywhere, Puck decided to charge the dude for all fifteen. 

Ms. Horatio can always refund the money if she disagrees. 

It puts Puck way behind on closing, though, the only saving grace being that he’s the one opening, and somehow, seeing some guy get arrested on the television as soon as he walks in the door doesn’t help. At least there’s no school the next day. 

“Home late tonight, Noah?”

“Yeah, guy killed a bunch of mugs right as I was about to close.” Puck sits down in the chair and waits until the credits start to roll before digging in his backpack and handing his report card to Rina. 

“Oh, that’s right, report cards. How’d you do?”

Noah shrugs. “All right, I guess. English is still the worst. I don’t know why it matters what shape the windows are or whatever.”

“No, I don’t suppose I would, either,” Rina concedes, opening Puck’s report card and looking over it. “Your physics grade is lower.”

“Substitute,” Puck grunts. “She keeps grading on ‘deportment’ but what she really means is how straight and Christian and conservative you are.”

“Oh, dear.” Rina looks like she’s suppressing a smile. “You don’t do well on any of those.”

“Not so much,” Puck agrees. “Did you know Nana’s mobilized the synagogue and the Lutherans and Episcopalians too?”

“She did mention something,” Rina nods. “At least there will be plenty of people.”

“Oh yeah. Lots of people.” Puck sighs. “I ran into the manager in the lobby on Monday.”

“Oh?”

“She wanted to know if you still wanted to move into a two–bedroom apartment. I told her, tentatively, yes.”

“Yes. Well.” Rina sighs. “I know you think that’s the best plan. I suppose you’re right. The extra money each month will be a big help. What month, though?”

“Well.” Puck chews on his lip for a second. “May.”

“The end of May? That’s still a couple of months before you leave, Noah.”

“No, the beginning of May.” Puck winces. 

“Noah! You won’t even have finished this school year yet!”

“I know, I know!” Puck hurries to answer her. “Listen. I have it mostly figured out. This is good, Mom, I’ll be around to help you move. The next apartment wouldn’t be open until after I’m in New York. I’ll help you move and I’ll stay at Kurt’s more nights than I do now.” He shrugs. “When I stay here, I’ll just sleep on an air mattress.”

“And what about your clothes and your things?”

“What I keep, what I’ll take with me in August? I can keep at Kurt’s. I’ve been going through everything anyway. I thought I could sell my furniture on Craigslist, maybe.”

Rina presses her lips together. “I suppose that makes sense. All right. I’ll find an air mattress when I go to Wal-Mart or K-Mart next, then. And I’ll stop by the office and sign whatever needs to be signed. Are you going to work on this during your break?”

Puck shrugs. “Yeah, that’d make sense, right? Finish going through stuff and go ahead and list the furniture if I can.”

“Oh, yes. And I suppose I should give you this early.” Rina gets up abruptly and leaves the room, returning with an envelope in her hand. “I was going to give this to you for graduation and your birthday, possibly waiting until your birthday so I could scrape more together, but this will do for now, I suppose.” She hands Puck the envelope with a slight smile. 

“What is it?” Puck asks curiously. 

“I knew you’d need a new computer, probably a laptop – I don’t know if this is enough yet, but you probably can’t fit yours into Kurt’s room, so.” She presses the envelope into Puck’s hand and grabs the remote with her other hand, turning off the television. “I’m going to go on to bed. Good night, Noah.”

“Night, Mom,” Puck responds almost automatically. He sits on the couch without moving until he hears the click of her bedroom door, and he still doesn’t look in the envelope, setting it down on the table and heading into the kitchen. He selects some leftovers and warms them up, eating them slowly and finishing off with a pop before returning to the living room to scoop up the envelope. 

He heads into the bedroom and finally opens it, slowly counting all the cash. No, it’s not enough, not its own, but it’s more help than he thought he’d get, and Rina’s right. Puck hadn’t thought about it, but she is right – his old desktop is huge.

Puck nods to himself and puts all the money back into the envelope, setting it under his wallet. He’ll put it in the bank after work the next morning. He supposes he understands why Rina pulled out cash, but it’s a lot of cash to have sitting around. There’s something final about it, too, and Puck figures he’d better get started on that bribe for Hannah. 

_Want to head to Cincy over break? Maybe Monday? Did promise F shopping trip._

_Good point. Monday sounds good, leave after you work?_

_I’ll bring the coffee ;) xx_

_Knew I kept you around for some reason :) xx_

 

Puck stops just inside the garage door and listens. Nope, no sounds of people moving about. Burt and Carole’s cars are both gone, so Puck pulls off his shirt after he removes his boots and jacket, then pads up the stairs. 

Kurt’s still asleep, curled on his side facing the doorway, and Puck grins, shutting the door behind him before shedding the rest of his clothes and sliding under the covers. He runs his finger down Kurt’s nose and then kisses its tip after his finger leaves. 

“Mmm?”

“Morning, blue eyes.”

Kurt blinks his eyes open and then smiles. “Well, hello there.”

“I could let you go back to sleep.”

“No, no, that won’t be necessary,” Kurt laughs, sliding one arm around Puck’s waist. “Dad and Carole are gone, I assume?”

“Yep. And not a creature is stirring. Except you.” Puck smirks.

Kurt rolls his eyes, but grins, and pokes Puck in the side. “Not just me.”

“Fair point,” Puck concedes. He slides his fingers through Kurt’s hair and slowly brings their lips together, moving their bodies closer together as he runs his tongue along Kurt’s lips. Kurt’s mouth opens against Puck’s, and Puck deepens the kiss, sliding one leg over Kurt and rolling them over. 

He pulls away and then fastens his mouth on Kurt’s neck, nipping and sucking until there’s a dark spot. They have almost a week for it to fade, and the same thought must’ve occurred to Kurt, because Puck has to close his eyes as Kurt turns his attention to Puck’s neck. Puck can tell by the satisfied look on Kurt’s face when he pulls away that he’s got a mark of his own. “Mmm,” Kurt says, touching the spot lightly. 

Puck chuckles and runs his tongue over each of Kurt’s nipples, then slowly kisses his way down Kurt’s torso. He circles the base of Kurt’s cock with his tongue, and Kurt squirms a little before putting his hands on Puck, urging him to move. Puck slowly turns, taking Kurt into his mouth little by little as he does so, until he feels Kurt’s lips on his own cock. 

The two of them mirror each other’s actions, and Puck would laugh if he could, going back and forth repeatedly until Puck feels Kurt is about to come, both by the fluid leaking into his mouth and the way Kurt’s mouth and tongue are vibrating around his cock. Puck runs his tongue slowly along the underside of Kurt’s cock, and Kurt shudders underneath him before his hips jerk forward and he comes deep in Puck’s mouth. Then Kurt does the same to Puck, and Puck goes over the edge, too, slumping to the side after a moment.

“Can we wake up like that every morning?” Kurt says after a few moments, sounding quite sated. 

Puck laughs and moves so that his head is on Kurt’s chest. “That doesn’t sound like the worst plan ever.”

“I know. I have good plans.”

 

Puck wants to laugh at the frustrated expression on Kurt’s face. He wants to, but he won’t because Kurt is clearly trying so hard to make sense of everything and take detailed notes summarizing all the information. He just still looks frustrated and Puck knows half the numbers are wrong. 

“Blue eyes,” Puck shakes his head. “Let me write it down. You can…” He looks around the room. “I don’t know, sing for me while I do it.”

Kurt snorts. “Okay. I’m being ridiculous, is what you are saying.”

“Maybe a bit.” Puck leans over and kisses Kurt on the nose. “The way I figure it is, this is one of those things where as long as one of us understands it, we’re golden.”

“Okay.” Kurt sighs and pushes everything across the Hudmel kitchen table to Puck. “I’ll make coffee. I need more coffee. It’s only 11 am, after all.”

“More coffee is always a good thing,” Puck agrees, scanning the pages from Marymount Manhattan. “K, did you read the third page?”

“I… no,” Kurt admits, “I got confused with all the acronyms, and what does ‘federal methodology’ or ‘self help’ even mean in this context?”

“You might want to look at it now,” Puck grins. “The first page was just a cover letter. The second page is about financial aid based on need. The _third_ page is scholarships.”

“Scholarships?” Kurt turns from the coffee machine and raises an eyebrow. “As in… plural?”

Puck laughs. “Yes, as in plural. Come look.”

Kurt walks back over and blinks at the page in front. “That’s… that’s a lot of money, baby.”

“It’s about eighty percent of your tuition and fees, is what it is,” Puck states. 

“Eighty.” Kurt sits back down, leaning against Puck. “Well. That answers _that_ question.”

“Plus the need–based stuff. You don’t qualify for as much as I did, which makes sense, but combine it with what your dad actually is going to pay, and.” Puck does some quick math in his head and nods. “Yeah, you’re actually pretty much set, blue eyes.”

“That is… unexpected.” Kurt looks a little stunned, and Puck decides that the best way to handle that is by kissing him. Kurt doesn’t object, and he’s grinning when they pull apart. 

Puck smirks. “So there you go. See, that wasn’t hard.”

“No. Since we already talked about a best case scenario.”

“Yep.” Puck pulls his own stack of papers towards him. “My grades aren’t as awesome, but I qualify for all kinds of grants and stuff. Federal government to the rescue!” He laughs and then puts his finger over his mouth. “Shh, don’t tell the Republicans I’m using ‘government handouts’.”

Kurt laughs. “How dare you take advantage of programs specifically designed for you to take advantage of?”

“Right?” Puck snorts. “It’s awful of me.”

“So how much will that take care of?”

“That plus the Mannes scholarship? All but $8,500.” Puck winces. “Which sounds like a ton until you realize that it started at $34,000.”

“Ouch.” Kurt frowns. “Hmm.”

“But there’s still that other scholarship I applied for.” Puck shrugs. “May not come to anything, but the average award is higher than $10,000, so _if_.”

“You already made it to semi-finalist point.”

“I’m an interesting story.” Puck shrugs. “Interesting stories don’t necessarily get the actual money, though.”

“People are going to think we’re insane for turning down the loans.”

“It already costs enough to live in the city.” Puck sighs. “Add the cost of loan repayments?” He shakes his head. “I know, I know, you don’t want to know the details.”

“No,” Kurt says cheerfully, leaning his head on Puck’s shoulder. “So the gist of it is, we might actually manage to eat?”

“Well, we can at least pay the MTA.”

“MTwhat?” Finn says, as he comes wandering into the kitchen, still in his flannel pajama pants, his hair sticking up at crazy angles. 

“A. MTA,” Puck answers. “Morning.”

“Mornings. What’s the MTA?” Finn asks, as he starts rifling through the cabinets and setting various items on the counter. 

“New York’s bus and subway system,” Kurt says. “Strangely, they want money for a thirty–day pass. Every thirty days. Don’t ask me more than that.”

“Oh,” Finn says. “Yeah. Ok, I won’t.” He finds the bag of tortilla chips and starts spreading some onto a plate. “You guys want nachos?”

“Sure,” Puck replies for both of them, after Kurt nods slightly. “And Kurt’s just having number–induced lethargy or something.”

“I’m not lethargic. Just really confused. And unwilling to move.”

Finn nods and piles even more chips onto the plate, then dumps what looks like a half a bag of shredded cheese on top before sticking the whole thing into the microwave. “So, you’re doing money stuff?”

“School costs a lot of money,” Kurt frowns. “Mr. Football Pays For My School.”

“Yeah, well, you could have stuck with the kicker thing,” Finn says. “You were good. Maybe you could have been a Badger with me.”

“I lasted three games, Finn,” Kurt says dryly. “I would have better luck at playing lacrosse.”

“Do we have a lacrosse team?” Finn asks. The microwave beeps, and he pulls the plate out, swearing under his breath a little. 

“Hotpad, Finn,” Kurt says almost absently. “And no. That was my point.”

“Hotpad, right. Thanks!” Finn retrieves a hotpad to move the plate over to the table. He sets the sour cream and guacamole containers next to it. “I thought you were good, and hey, I know a lot about football stuff. You didn’t quit because you weren’t good.”

Kurt shrugs and doesn’t really reply, grabbing one of the chips off the plate and dipping it in the sour cream before eating it. 

“But we determined we can eat next year,” Puck shrugs, grabbing a couple of chips himself. 

“Well, that’s good,” Finn says. “You guys are skinny enough as it is. I’d be worried if you couldn’t eat. I’d have to send you stuff from the dining hall all the time. I could send cheese.”

“You can send us cheese anyway,” Puck suggests, grinning. 

“Nah, you’ve gotta come get the cheese yourself,” Finn says. “How else am I gonna get you to visit me?”

“Cheese of the Month club?” Puck continues hopefully. “Send us extra cheese if we visit?”

“Visit once a month and _get_ your cheese.”

“You could bring the cheese and visit _us_.”

“Well,” Finn says, pausing to eat a nacho. “I mean, I do have that ticket.” His face flushes and he grabs another nacho, not looking at Puck or Kurt.

“Carry on full of cheese!” Puck laughs and dumps guacamole on the chips in his hand. “Better bring hard cheeses for that.”

“Yeah, uh, I’ll bring. I dunno. Cheese. I’ll bring you some cheese.”

“We’ll provide our own chips?” Kurt suggests. “It’ll be a feast.”

“Well, see? So you’ll be able to eat… there.” Finn nods. 

“You’re going to starve us when we visit?”

“Uh, no. Why would I do that?” Finn looks confused. “I just said I’d worry if you guys weren’t eating.”

“Well, you did add the ‘there’ at the end.”

Finn shrugs. “Sorry.”

“You planned anything for today?”

“Not really. I mean, I’ll put clothes on at some point, but that’s as far as I’ve thought it through,” Finn says.

“Seems like a good plan.” Puck shrugs. 

“You want to bum around with me? We can play video games and eat junk food. Well, ok, we’ll all eat junk food and then Kurt will own our asses at Motorsport 4,” Finn says. “I’ll even be the ottoman, if you want. I’m studying up for college.”

“I’ll strive to distract you both if you play Call of Duty,” Kurt nods. “Even if there are zombies.” Kurt scoops up more of the nachos but pauses before eating another bite. “Oh, what are you doing, say, Monday?”

“Probably the same thing I’m doing right now,” Finn says. “Probably in different pants and maybe something else instead of nachos.”

“How about… Cincinnati, instead?”

“Oh, yeah, sure. What for?”

“Cinnamon buns,” Puck grins. 

“And you said something once. I think. About shopping. Maybe I dreamed it.” Kurt frowns. “It would be a nice dream, so that’s possible.”

“No, I think I said something. I need a suit, because, I dunno. I need a suit. It was on my list,” Finn says. “The list they sent us. My suit is kinda… well, you know how it is.”

“Oh, good. Wasn’t a dream. Yes, your suit.” Kurt shakes his head, sounding mournful. 

“If you don’t want to help, that’s ok,” Finn says, looking at Kurt with a strange expression. “I can probably find one online or something. I just thought, you know. You’re better at that stuff.”

“I don’t think you could, actually. No, I was just contemplating your current suit. I should stop doing that.”

“It’s too tight in the shoulders. I don’t know why that happened,” Finn says. “It fit before. It fit in, like, October.”

“Maybe you got bigger?” Puck suggests. “Pretty sure it didn’t randomly shrink. Clothes don’t do that. Do they? I mean, not without help.”

“Sometimes things happen. Uh. To clothes.” Finn looks randomly guilty. 

“Did you try to wash your suit?” Kurt frowns. “You can’t wash your suit at home, Finn, it’s dry-clean only.”

“[Sometimes maybe you can wash dry-clean only things](https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1k-dstMVpuKUQaICfcbsRg1EfVCM4cB4IH-GZDJ___9s),” Finn mumbles. “It can work out ok.”

“If we find you a suit, promise me you won’t try to wash it.”

“I wouldn’t do that. I know suits don’t go in the wash,” Finn says. “Puck’s probably right, anyway. Probably I grew. I dunno. What’s another couples inches, right? I’m already a giant.”

“You should get one that has extra fabric, so you could get it let out.”

“Maybe I’m done growing,” Finn says. “It’s possible.”

“But not likely,” Puck points out. 

“But _possible_!”

“It’s also possible that a meteor’s gonna fall through the roof and crush us all to death just as we finish these nachos, but.” Puck shrugs. “I’m pretty confident that’s not happening.”

Finn makes his grumpy face at Puck. “I’m tired of growing. I just want the clothes I have to fit right and to not have to worry about it. I can already reach all the high shelves, so what good’s it doing me?”

“Quidditch?”

“I don’t think that’s a real game, dude,” Finn says. “And anyway, if it were, I’d totally fall off my broom, because it’s too small.”

“You own a broom?”

“Well, I would if I played Quidditch.”

“This conversation is getting strange.”

Finn shrugs. “You guys started it. I’m just here for the nachos and the fashion advice.”

“I feel like I should be in a sitcom, with a lead-in like that.”

“I feel like I should go put on some jeans and we should play video games,” Finn says. He takes the empty nacho plate and sticks it in the dishwasher, then puts the empty sour cream and guacamole containers into the trash can, before going upstairs. He’s back down again after a few minutes, in jeans and a clean T-shirt. “Kurt plays the winner?”

“I always play the winner,” Kurt sniffs. 

“You want to go first? I’ll play the winner, which’ll be you,” Finn says. “Or we can play your dad’s golf game and then we can all just suck.”

Puck laughs. “We couldn’t suck worse than Burt himself.”

 

They do spend the entirety of Thursday doing more or less exactly what Finn suggested: eating junk food and playing video games. When Carole gets home, she waves at the three of them, walks into the kitchen, and then after a few minutes of opening cabinets and the freezer door, reappears in the doorway. 

“How does pizza sound, boys?” Carole sighs. “Unless one of you wants to cook dinner tonight.” 

Puck absently thinks that probably he should volunteer or something, but before he can respond, Kurt speaks up. “Pizza sounds lovely, Carole. A Super Supreme, a Meat Eaters, and some Cajun wings?”

“You boys are hungry!”

“Spring break is hard work,” Puck laughs. 

“I suppose it is. You aren’t working more hours during break, Noah?”

Puck shakes his head. “I’m the only one on Lima City Schools’ schedule, so it didn’t make any sense to rearrange things. I still get the first night of Passover off, and I don’t care if I work Easter, obviously, so.” He shrugs.

“Well, that’s nice you get a real break,” Carole nods. “All right, I’ll go order that pizza.”

Finn waves his thanks, concentrating fiercely on attempting not to lose to Kurt for the sixth or seventh time that day. “Thanks, Carole,” Kurt nods, taking his eyes away from the screen to smile, yet he still maintains his lead comfortably. 

“No problem!”

Finn loses again, predictably, and tosses the controller to Puck, who does his best to distract Kurt as they play, which means he doesn’t lose by quite so wide a margin as Finn. It doesn’t exactly take long, however, which means that the pizza and wings arrive just as Puck is defeated. 

Puck stays over Thursday night and eats breakfast with Kurt before Kurt drops him back off at home to meet Hannah. “I should be back by three or four,” Kurt says with a sigh. “Neither of the tests is supposed to be long. It’s more the inconvenience of driving there.”

“Yeah. And then you get to eat matzoh and bitter herbs.” Puck smirks. “Don’t you feel lucky?”

“Is that the word I should use?” Kurt grins. “Have fun with Hannah.”

“Oh, yeah.” Puck shakes his head. “Be good.”

“I’m always good.”

Puck heads up the stairs and groans as Hannah tackles him. “Noah! Are we going to the library? Mom left the car for you this morning! So we can go buy all my supplies and maybe start on my experiment if I find one!”

“She left the car, huh?” Puck answers. “Well, all right. You have your backpack?”

“I’ll go get it!” Hannah dashes back to her room and returns with her backpack over one shoulder. “I want to do a project about cooking! Cooking uses science, right?” 

“Yeah, chemistry, I guess,” Puck agrees. “We’ll talk to the library people when we get there, okay?”

“You mean Mr. Sellers?” Hannah says. 

“Uh, sure?” Puck says, confused.

“Mr. Sellers is the children’s librarian. Mom and I go to the library on Wednesday nights for the elementary age thing. He’s really cool!”

“Oh, okay.” Puck nods. “Sure. We’ll talk to Mr. Sellers.”

Hannah climbs in the back of their mom’s car, chattering excitedly about the science fair and how she just knows she’s going to do a better project than Stevie will, because Stevie’s project is just dumb. “He’s going to take some seeds and water some of them with different kinds of pop and one with actual water, and see which one grows the best!”

“Yeah, that does sound… interesting,” Puck finally settles on, parking his mom’s beat-up station wagon at the library and following her inside. 

“Hi, Mr. Sellers!” Hannah greets the bearded man sitting behind the desk in the children’s area. “This is my brother, Noah!”

“Hello, Noah. Hello, Hannah,” Mr. Sellers says. “What are you kids looking for today?”

Puck nods a greeting as Hannah continues to ramble. “I need to figure out my science fair project. I want to do something about cooking! And Noah’s going to take me to get all my supplies.” She looks like she’s about to say something else when she stops abruptly. “So can you help me?”

“Sure! Here, let’s go over to the science section. We have several books with science fair project ideas,” Mr. Sellers says, standing up and leading Hannah in the direction of the kids’ non-fiction books. 

Puck can’t quite decide if this is really nice of him or a weird way to spend a day of spring break, or possibly both. Either way, Hannah trots excitedly after Mr. Sellers as they stop in front of one shelf. 

“Ew, I don’t want to do any projects with worms!” Hannah says immediately, reading the title of one of the books. 

“Snakes?” Noah offers.

“No snakes either!”

Mr. Sellers pulls a book off the shelf and flips through a few pages. “Here’s one with a few ideas. Why popcorn pops, why onions make you cry. Oh, here’s one about yeast cultures!”

“Yeast?” Hannah tilts her head in a gesture that Puck recognizes immediately, and he has to stifle a laugh. “What about yeast?”

“Well, this talks about yeast, temperature, and activation,” Mr. Sellers explains. “Whether yeast likes cold, room-temperature, or hot better.”

“Ooh! And then I could try to make bread with each of them!” Hannah looks thrilled as the prospect. 

“That sounds like a great plan, Hannah. Do you want any of the rest of these?”

“Um.” Hannah looks over at Puck questioningly. “What do you think, Noah?”

Puck shrugs. “Do you have a limit on how many you can check out? And do you think anyone else in your class needs them?”

“Um,” Hannah repeats. “I should be nice and only take the ones I need, shouldn’t I?”

“That would be very considerate of you, Hannah,” Mr. Sellers agrees. “If you need them, though, you should take them.”

“I like baking,” Hannah says thoughtfully. “I’ll just take this one. If it doesn’t work, I can come back!”

“There’s a great book in the adult section, _Cooking for Geeks_ , that you might like. Should we go look for that?”

“Am I a geek?” Hannah asks, and Puck laughs. 

“Probably,” he says to her with a grin. 

“Does that mean you are, too?”

“Um.” Puck shrugs. “Maybe. Probably by some definitions.”

 

The rest of the morning and early afternoon is spent chasing down supplies for Hannah. Puck feels like he has driven across Lima and back at least twice, from K-Mart to Ray’s and the Meijer. When they finally get back to the apartment, Hannah wants to get started on her experiments _right then_.

“I have that thing! Momento!”

“Moment _um_?” Puck asks, laughs. “You may have momentum, but your brother has senioritis.” He pauses. “You could work on your introduction and hypothesis, squirt. Make a chart or something to record your results. I’ll fix us some lunch finally. Plus Mom won’t want the kitchen a mess with the seder tonight.”

“Oh, yeah! It’s Passover! Is Kurt coming?”

“Yeah, Kurt’s coming,” Puck nods. “He went to take the last of his mechanic tests today.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that he can get paid more money when we move to New York in August.”

“Hey, Mom said that we’re moving downstairs! And you won’t have a room.” Hannah frowns. “Does that mean you’re moving out?”

“Not exactly.” Puck sighs. “You know how sometimes I sleep at Kurt’s?”

“Yeah. Mom says it’s ’cause you like to do things that would be inappropriate in front of your younger sister.”

Puck blinks. “Well. Okay. Yeah, sort of. Anyway. I’ll sleep at Kurt’s more and when I am here, I’ll sleep on an air mattress or something in the living room.”

“Oh. Okay. What about all your stuff, like your dresser?”

“I’m going to sell it. Unless you want to change furniture?”

Hannah shakes her head. “Uh-uh. I like my furniture!”

“Well, that works out, then, doesn’t it?” Puck laughs. “Go work on your experiment. I’ll let you know when lunch is ready.”

 

By the time Kurt arrives back in Lima, Puck’s managed to list his furniture on Craigslist, which might be a little premature, but what if it takes a while? 

“How’d it go?” Puck asks after Kurt wraps his arms around him. 

“I passed,” Kurt sighs. “And now I’m done with them until I have to recertify or whatever. Which isn’t for awhile.”

“Hey, we’re having a good week or so.”

“We are,” Kurt agrees. “Except now you’re going to give up everything with yeast, which makes no sense.”

Puck laughs. “You know, Hannah decided to do her science fair project on… yeast.”

“That’s quite a choice,” Kurt laughs as well. “Cooking?”

“Cooking.”

Kurt is mostly quiet during the seder, despite Nana’s best efforts. Nana spends most of the meal talking about either the Knitzvahs or her efforts at organizing the ‘liberal religious folk of Lima’ to be at the schoolboard meeting. 

“I don’t see why you’re letting yourself get so worked up about this, Mother. You’re going to give yourself another heart attack.”

“My heart attack was seventeen years ago and I haven’t had a spot of trouble since then, Rina. Don’t worry about me. I’m fit as a fiddle. Some of my friends in the Knitzvahs are talking about getting together a training group. We’re going to walk a half-marathon.”

“A whole half-marathon?” Hannah asks, eyes wide.

“Yes, we’re the Sprinting Knitzvahs! I think we’re going to get T-shirts made.”

Puck and Kurt both laugh and Puck has to wonder if maybe he and Finn heard too much about Nana and her T-shirts growing up, because that would explain why they’re always talking about getting T-shirts made, too.

Kurt puts up with the strange food of seder without too much rolling of eyes, and then they escape back to Kurt’s house. Finn is not there, apparently off doing something with Karofsky and maybe Sam, too. 

Saturday and most of Sunday pass as Thursday did, though Puck does go to work on Sunday morning, and sometimes the Xbox playing is interrupted by watching DVDs. They make Finn finally sit down and watch the entirety of _Firefly_ , which means Finn spends the better part of the weekend humming the theme song and swearing by his pretty floral bonnet to end them. 

Puck does cook dinner on Sunday evening, spaghetti with meatballs and really garlicky garlic bread, which leads Kurt to assert that they don’t even need a wooden stake when they leave that evening. 

Their glee rehearsal is at Rachel’s that week, and Puck laughs when he realizes that they’ve scheduled a rehearsal not only during spring break but also during Passover _and_ on Easter. 

“So, I think after the break, we should start having Tuesday morning rehearsals again,” Finn says, as they’re driving over to Rachel’s. “I know, like, _Tuesday_ or whatever, but you’re kinda there all the time now, so I thought it might be ok.”

“Are you saying you’re sick of me?” Puck laughs. “Yeah, well, figured the hiatus was too good to last.”

“I hate to say it,” Kurt says, “but we probably should add more rehearsals by the end of the month. We’re still not rehearsing as much as some of the other groups headed to Nationals.”

“Well, we’ll never rehearse as much as Vocal Adrenaline,” Finn says. “I can’t do an IV. That just… that’s _creepy_ , dude.”

“No, no IVs,” Kurt agrees. “But no one wants to be like Sylvester.”

“We’ll talk about what days would be good for everybody,” Finn says. “Ok, not really everybody. Just the people we like best. Everybody else can just suck it up.”

“So we just need to ask Mike?” Puck asks innocently.

“Hey, I like Tina, too,” Finn says. “And we should probably ask Britt, just in case.”

“I figured Mike would know Tina’s schedule,” Puck shrugs. “But yeah, we should probably ask Brittany, too.”

“Maybe Monday nights,” Finn suggests.

Kurt tilts his head, and at the next stop sign, turns slightly to look at Finn. “Didn’t you used to…?”

“Yup, but Rach kept ’em,” Finn says. “If she’s gonna be swing dancing anyway, it may as well actually count.”

Puck stifles a laugh and Kurt just raises his eyebrows, looking amused. They arrive at Rachel’s then, only to see Hiram repotting something on the porch. “Hello, boys!” Hiram greets them cheerfully. “Transplanting all my basil!”

“Hello, Hiram,” Kurt returns. “You have a lot of it.”

“Six kinds!” He grins. “Let me know if you want a seedling!”

“Basil comes in six kinds?” Finn asks. “That’s sorta weird.”

“Maybe one of them was the kind in your mom’s fish stew,” Puck suggests. “Yeah, that’d be cool.”

“Lemon, sweet, Thai?”

“Uh, sweet. Can I get one of the Thai for Hannah, though?”

“I have cinnamon basil, too.”

“Well, whatever you think she’d get a kick out of.”

“Right!” Hiram nods. “Door’s unlocked. Go ahead downstairs.”

“Thanks,” Kurt nods. 

When they get downstairs, Mercedes and Sam are already there, and even more unusually, it’s Sam who is chatting with Rachel. 

“Hey, man,” Sam greets Finn. “I Googled the shower caddy. I think I have it figured out.”

“Sweet! You can explain it to me, and I’ll text Karofsky,” Finn says. “I think he was gonna ask Casey, but I don’t know why. I don’t think Casey would have any idea either. He look like a kid who knows about shower caddies to you?”

“Finn, why are you all mystified about something as basic as a shower caddy?” Kurt asks, looking puzzled.

“’Cause none of us wear makeup. We don’t know why we need them,” Finn explains. 

Kurt looks like he is trying very, very hard not to bust a gut laughing. Mercedes and Rachel have no such compunction and are visibly giggling. “Finn, a shower caddy is a plastic bucket. You carry your soap and shampoo to the shower in them.”

“Oh. Huh.” Finn looks stunned. “Well, why don’t they just explain that on the lists, then?”

“Apparently to confuse you?” Kurt suggests. 

Quinn, Brittany, and Santana arrive then, chattering loudly about the Cheerios and their upcoming trip to Nationals at the end of April. Mike and Tina appear at the foot of the stairs shortly thereafter, balancing Artie between them. 

“First order of business,” Finn announces. “Starting the week after break, Tuesday morning practices are back on. Second order of business, _this_ Tuesday, all the guys are coming over to our place, and we’re gonna do video games and wings.”

“Wings?” Rachel makes a distressed face. “Don’t they kill baby chickens to get those tiny wings?”

Finn scowls at Rachel. “I swear by my pretty floral bonnet—”

“That’s enough,” Kurt interrupts. “No more bonnets.”

“Yes! Another convert!” Artie says.

“Whedon’s alluring,” Puck nods. 

“I like Wash,” Finn says. “He’s my favorite.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Rachel looks utterly perplexed. “Who are these people?”

“Never mind, Rachel,” Kurt says with a slight sigh. 

“Anyway, so everybody write down Tuesdays,” Finn says, switching back to their earlier topic and ignoring Rachel. “Also, I think the week after we’re back from spring break, we should add a Monday night rehearsal.”

“What time?” Kurt frowns. 

“7? 7:30?” Finn suggests. “Figure we’ll do vocals only on Monday, then focus on choreography stuff on Tuesday mornings.”

“Well, all right.” Kurt sighs, but it’s a touch _too_ dramatic, and Puck bites his lip. He knows what Kurt’s doing, but Kurt’s having a little too much fun with it.

“But! But!” Rachel splutters and then stares at Finn, like he should possibly start apologizing just from the force of her stare. 

“But what?” Finn asks, wide-eyed and innocent–faced. “Does anybody else have Monday night plans that would be interrupted? I don’t want to mess up anybody’s Friday or something, and Monday seems like it’s a good night.”

“Sometimes I have to take Hannah to dance class, but that’s at seven. Mom can pick her up.”

“So, 7:30, then,” Finn says. “Everybody else?”

No one objects verbally, though Rachel continues to frown and scan the room as if looking for an ally. Finding none, she just scowls and throws one last glare at Finn before minutely nodding her head. 

“Where?” Sam asks practically. “We’ve been rotating between the same three houses all year, we can’t really ask y’all to host another night each week.”

“No,” Kurt agrees. “Probably not. Does anyone have a space to offer?”

“We can use my house,” Brittany says. “My mom won’t mind. My dad probably won’t mind either, and even if he does, he won’t say it out loud.”

“It’s true,” Santana nods. “There’s enough room if we’re just doing vocals.”

“We can have snacks,” Brittany declares. “I’ll make them with my dad.”

“As long as they aren’t vegan,” Puck mutters under his breath.

“We should try running through the set with ‘Somebody Told Me’ first,” Finn says. “I think the duet needs to stay in the middle, but we can try switching out the first and last number.”

Mike nods. “Yeah, I don’t think most of you are up to putting ‘This is War’ and ‘Somebody Told Me’ back–to–back. Let’s see how we do with the most intensive dancing first, though.”

After they complete an entire run-through, they’re all breathing a little heavily, and scatter to the sides of the room for drinks, looking at Mike and Finn. “It seems like some of you were more tired at the beginning of ‘This is War’ doing it this way, than you were at the beginning of the third song with the other order. Did you think so, Finn?”

Finn nods. “Yeah, it sounded a lot better when we had ‘This is War’ first.”

“I think the dancing on ‘Somebody Told Me’ wasn’t improved enough to warrant putting it first,” Mike adds.

“Sounds like we have our set order then,” Finn says, grinning. “Awesome!”

“Let me guess,” Puck says with a little amusement. “Bridges?”

“Well, I guess we could stand around and stare at each other like the other groups, waiting for the music to start again,” Artie suggests. 

“No offense, but I stare at all of you enough not to do it on stage.” Santana pauses. “Actually, go ahead and take offense if you want.”

 

When Puck arrives at the Hudmel house just after eight on Monday morning, Kurt is standing on the porch, looking somewhat alert, and Finn is leaning against one railing, looking somewhat less than alert. Puck looks down at the cup holders in the Nav and shrugs. Venti–sized drinks should help with that for all of them. 

“You driving?” Puck asks as he climbs out. 

“I thought I’d drive until we got just below Dayton. We could stop there and eat.”

“Can we go in the mall and get chicken biscuits?” Puck grins. “Breakfast in Dayton, lunch at Ikea, cinnamon buns, and dinner at the food court?” 

“It’s your perfect food day,” Kurt laughs. “Sure. Why not.”

“Do I smell coffee?” Finn mumbles. “Actual coffee? Not just Puck?”

“Actual coffee,” Puck confirms, jerking his head towards the Nav. “Venti.”

“You’re a god among men,” Finn says. “Seriously. Building you a shrine later.”

“I take offerings in the form of food, pop, and food.”

“Why are we up so early?” Finn whines. 

“To torture you,” Kurt says, clearly exasperated. “Apparently the first four reasons weren’t legitimate enough.”

“And why didn’t you _warn_ me last night?”

“I didn’t realize it was something that required extensive warnings.” Kurt sighs and climbs into the Nav. “Come on. Coffee. Food in an hour or so.”

Finn hauls himself into the back seat of the Nav a little more dramatically than is necessary. Puck hands Finn back his coffee, which at least seems to be enough to prevent any further whining. 

The ride is mostly quiet for a bit, Puck fiddling with the sound for awhile, until after about half an hour, Finn finishes his coffee and announces that he is starving to death.

“Still about thirty minutes,” Puck says. “Chicken biscuits, remember?”

“I’m gonna die before then. Thirty minutes is a long time.”

“They’re worth waiting for, dude.”

“Plus there’s not exactly much to eat between here and there, to begin with,” Kurt adds.

“Ok, ok,” Finn grumbles. “I wish I had more coffee, at least.”

“We’ll get more coffee there,” Kurt promises. “Okay?”

“Ok,” Finn says. “I can wait, I guess.”

Puck has to admit that he’s pretty hungry, too, by the time they get below Dayton and head in to get breakfast. There’s not a line and Kurt insists that they get their food to go. 

“I have to eat and drive?”

“Eat fast?” Kurt says with a slight smirk. “Or I can hold it for you.”

“Great,” Puck pretends to grumble. “Then I get the first bag.”

Finn orders two biscuits, hashbrowns, and another large coffee, then spends the walk back to the Nav complaining about how it’s too cold for April, and it’s too windy, and how he should have gotten _two_ large coffees.

“If you’d bought two coffees, how could you carry your food?” Kurt asks practically. “And don’t get any ketchup on the seats.”

“I don’t ever get ketchup on the seats,” Finn protests. “I mean, just that one time.”

“Let’s just keep it at once, yes?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I won’t spill anything. I promise.”

Kurt just nods and climbs into the passenger seat of the Nav, unwrapping his own biscuit and taking a bite before handing Puck his. Puck starts the Nav and heads back to the interstate. “Ikea first, right?”

“Yes, that seemed logical. A little bit of shopping and lunch.”

Ikea isn’t very crowded when they arrive, which is a change, and they head up to wander around. 

“That’s a lot of chairs,” Finn says, as they enter the furniture section. “It smells like meatballs in here.”

“Meatballs _after_ we shop,” Kurt says. “And yes, well. It’s the chair section. There’s going to be a lot of sofas in just a moment.”

“Why are there so many of them? Those over there,” Finn says, waving his hand at a cluster of chairs, “all look like the same chair, just different colors.”

“That way you can see all the colors?” Puck shrugs. “You want to buy a chair, man, or can we keep wandering?”

“I don’t need a chair,” Finn says. “I don’t think so, anyway.”

“You didn’t have any furniture on your supply list? Along with your shower caddy?” Kurt raises an eyebrow, clearly still amused.

“We aren’t recommended to loft our beds,” Finn says. “It was on the list.”

“Oh.” Kurt shrugs. “All right.” He tilts his head. “You might want some of those bed–risers though. Then you could store stuff under your bed, at least.”

“Yeah, ok, sure,” Finn says. “I don’t know what those look like, so if you see those, we can get those.”

“Black plastic.” Kurt shrugs as they keep walking. “I assume you have a desk and things provided.”

“Desk, chair, bed, all of that stuff. I need a fridge and some lamps or whatever. Maybe a futon thingy for the common area, but I dunno. I need to talk to Jamie and Doug about that.”

“No small refrigerators here, but there. Futon to your heart’s content,” Puck gestures towards the futons nearby. Finn nods and wanders off in that direction. Puck follows Kurt towards one of the tiny sample rooms, which Puck thinks is actually smaller than the studio apartments they’ve been looking at online. That, they both think, is probably encouraging. On the other hand, none of the studio apartments they’ve seen are actually rectangular, since most of them are converted from pre-war buildings, at least according to the descriptions. 

They head back to the futons and then stop, frowning. “Where’d he go?”

Kurt shrugs. “Maybe he went around the corner?”

As they head towards the corner, though, they pass another sample room and hear some giggling from inside it. Puck turns to glance inside and then groans.

“What is it?”

“Found him.”

“You did?” Kurt turns to look and then sighs. “Leave it to Finn to fall asleep in the sample room at Ikea.”

“Hopefully we’ll be able to wake him up without extraordinary measures.”

“He’ll wish we just had a glass of water.” Kurt walks over to Finn, ignoring the women who were giggling, and leans down next to Finn’s ear. “FINN!”

Finn jumps in place, arms and legs flailing out, which is particularly funny because he’s curled up in a relatively small chair. “What!” He blinks his eyes rapidly. “What’s happening?”

“You fell asleep. In the middle of Ikea.”

“What?” Finn continues to blink, rubbing his eyes. “No, I don’t think that would happen.”

“And yet, it just did,” Puck snorts. “Come on. We’ll go find you something more interesting. Like beds.”

“These rooms are _really_ small,” Finn says, disentangling himself from the chair. 

“This one’s actually bigger than most apartments we looked at online,” Puck says, glancing around. “Spacious, even.”

Finn shakes his head. “I guess that’s why I can’t live in New York. Wouldn’t fit.”

Puck shrugs as they walk past the beds, Kurt determinedly keeping them walking past all the set–up beds and mattresses. “Oh, look,” Kurt says when they get to the dining room area. “A table that would fit.”

“I thought you guys were putting your bed up on a thing,” Finn says. “What good’s a bedside table gonna do you?”

“Not bedside table, eating table,” Puck rolls his eyes at Finn.

“How do you eat on that? That’s tiny! Where do the _plates_ even go?” Finn looks horrified. “New York is too tiny, you guys, seriously. I’m not even gonna be able to _visit_ you!”

“The sides fold up, dude.”

“Still _tiny_.”

“That way there’s more room for, you know. Couch. Television.”

Finn just shakes his head sadly. “Craziness.”

They finally walk Finn through the furniture, picking up a set of the bed risers near the kids’ stuff, and head downstairs. Kurt picks up two different blankets and then Finn traipses through the lamp displays, turning all of the lamps on and repositioning all the adjustable ones to shine directly into the aisle.

“It’s like an interrogation in here now!” Finn says. 

“I was going to ask if you had a purpose,” Kurt says dryly. “Good to know you do.”

“Where were you on the night of the, um… twelfth?” Finn asks. 

“Of March? In bed.” Kurt shakes his head. “What about you?”

“Hmm. Yeah, probably in bed,” Finn says. “I can check my busy social calendar, though.”

“Let’s get batteries and cinnamon buns and go eat,” Puck suggests, walking back over to slide his arm around Kurt. Finn flings one of his arms across Kurt’s shoulders, his fingers resting on the back of Puck’s neck. 

“Cinnamon buns are the magic word!” Finn says. 

“Onwards, then,” Kurt says, amused. 

They manage to get through the rest of the store a bit faster, then pick up so many six-packs of cinnamon buns that the woman behind the counter looks at them oddly. Then they head back to the cafe for lunch, Finn enthusiastically getting extra meatballs. After Puck picks up the chocolate overload cake—before the rest of his food, because really, it’s the most important thing—Finn grabs a slice as well. 

Kurt drives them over to the mall after they finish eating, and when he parks there, he turns to look at Finn. “All right. What’s your budget?”

“Uh, mom gave me her credit card and said, ‘Tell Kurt to be reasonable’, so I guess it’s ‘reasonable’?”

Kurt purses his lips. “Why do I have a feeling that my definition of reasonable is different from your mother’s?”

“Because Carole agrees with my mom that driving down to Target is a big deal of a shopping trip?”

“Right. Well, I have managed to drag her to the outlets a few times, but.”

“Well, it’s not _our_ fault if she didn’t give a number, right?” Finn says. 

“That’s true,” Kurt brightens. “Very true.” With that, they climb out of the Nav and head into the mall, which again is thankfully not that crowded.

“So, I have to try suits on, right? It’s not a guessing thing?”

Kurt shakes his head. “Sorry, no. But we can at least preliminarily eliminate some, based on color and cut.”

“Can you say that again in normal–people talk?” Finn asks.

“You don’t have to try something on to rule it out.”

“Oh, ok. Cool.” Finn looks thoughtful for a moment. “Remember, _grey_.”

“I’ll do my best. There aren’t a lot of light grey suits, you know.”

“They look cooler,” Finn says. 

“How, exactly?” Puck has to ask, furrowing his brow.

“Because. Because.” Finn seems unable to articulate exactly why, so he just makes a face. “Because they just do.”

“Right.” Puck shrugs and shakes his head. “I need to go by the Apple Store, too.”

“Right.” Kurt nods. “We can go by as we pass it.”

“Why the Apple store?”

“New computer.” Puck shrugs. “Mom was apparently going to wait until graduation to give me a bunch of money, but, you know. Huge desktop.”

“Oh, hey! That’s cool!” Finn grins. “Do you know what you’re gonna get?”

“One of the expensive laptops. The Air ones don’t have as many connections or something? I don’t know, everything I read online said Pro.”

“Well, ok.” Finn shrugs. “I dunno about that. I have to have a huge one so I can fit my fingers on there.”

“Is that a category of laptops?” Puck jokes. “Big keyboards for Finn–sized people?”

“Maybe it should be?” Kurt shrugs. “All right. Let’s head this way, first.” Kurt leads them towards Nordstrom and then to the suits, stopping in the middle of the section and gesturing expansively. Finn looks overwhelmed by the sheer number of suits and seems to be frozen in the main aisle, like the suits might attack if they notice any sudden movement.

“So. Grey. Why again?” Kurt sighs. 

“Because grey suits look cooler,” Finn says. “They’re what they wear in my shows. They just look so _cool_.”

“Your shows?” Puck asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, you know. _Burn Notice_ and _White Collar_.”

“The crime ones?” Puck shrugs. “You know I don’t like crime shows.”

“They aren’t crime shows, dude,” Finn says. “I keep telling you that. One’s about a spy and the other one is about a con artist, and they both wear, like, _really_ nice suits. Seriously. It’s like the _Ocean’s_ movies.”

“Still crime.”

“I don’t understand what you get out of those shows,” Kurt interjects. “But fine. We’ll try to make you look ‘cool’ in a grey suit.”

“Thanks. I promise if I ever become an art forger or whatever, I’ll paint you a… something. I’m not sure what.”

“I’ll look forward to that.” Kurt shakes his head and looks around. “Here. I’ll grab a few and then you go try them on.” Kurt does just that, frowning at some and shaking his head at others before handing five or six hangers and pointing in the direction of the changing rooms. 

Finn accepts the suits and goes to the changing rooms. After a few minutes, they can hear him yell, “Hey Kurt? I think they all look the same!”

Kurt stifles a laugh as he leans against Puck, taking a moment before he responds. “Well, if none of them stand out, we’ll keep looking. Do any look worse than the others?”

“Uh. They all look like suits. How do I tell how they look when they’re on the hangers?” 

“Finn!” Kurt looks exasperated. “You have to put them on. That’s why you’re in the changing rooms.”

“I thought I only had to try on the ones that I liked,” Finn says. “I can’t tell if I like them or not.”

“That’s why you try them on.” Kurt shakes his head. “If you don’t like them on the hanger, you don’t try them on. For instance, two of those are three–button and the others are two–button. Do you have a preference?”

“Fewer buttons,” Finn says. “Ok, so that’s two of ’em I don’t have to try on, right?” 

“Yes. Exactly. And if you don’t like the particular shade of grey for any of them, you can eliminate it as well.”

“Ok.” There’s some thumping and bumping from the dressing room, then Finn says, “Too short!”

“Pants only or jacket as well?”

“Uh, yes to both.”

“All right. Put it aside so I can make a note.” Kurt stops and grins wickedly. “In your file.”

“You know I know you don’t really have files, right?” Finn says. “I know you don’t. Not that kinda files anyway.” After more thumping around, Finn announces, “These pants are _weird_.”

“In what way?” Puck has to ask. “Are they buttless?”

“Dude. Uncool. That would make them chaps. Why would you guys try to make me try on chaps?” 

“Suit chaps. I’m not sure that’s going to catch on,” Kurt muses. “What _is_ weird about them?”

“The legs. Or the front part. I dunno. All of them. They look like something Burt would wear.”

“Ah. The cut. All right.” Kurt sighs. “What brand does it say?”

After a brief pause, Finn laughs. “Boss.”

“I could get used to that mode of address.”

“I already call you the bossofme. Anyway, I don’t like these pants.”

“Then I guess you’re the boss of those pants,” Puck snorts. 

“Do you have any left to try on?”

“Just one. I’ll put that one on, but I dunno. I’m kind of thinking maybe all the suits look wrong. Maybe not everybody’s meant to wear suits,” Finn says. “I might be one of those people. The not–suit people.”

“Or perhaps these are just the wrong suits. It’s only the first store, Finn.”

“Well, this one seems like it’s mostly the right size, anyway,” Finn sighs. “Here. Tell me if I look stupid.” He swings open the dressing room door. The pants are still a tad too short, but Kurt had said something about hemming and tailors anyway. 

Apparently Finn–sized suits are hard to find in stock. 

“You don’t look stupid,” Kurt says, rolling his eyes. “Turn around.” Finn rotates in a slow circle. “Hmm.” Kurt purses his lips. “The pants are good. I’m not sure about how the fabric drapes with the cut of the jacket.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what that means,” Finn says. “Except, I guess probably… more suits, right?”

“Yes. More suits,” Kurt says definitively. Once Finn is no longer wearing the suit, and is wearing his own clothes and shoes again, they embark upon the suit tour of the mall. The first three stores don’t yield much, but Kurt and Finn both look intrigued in the fourth store. Kurt picks up one pair of pants and one jacket and hands them to Finn along with two different shirts. “Go.”

“Which shirt?”

“Try the white one first.”

Finn nods and disappears into the dressing room. After several minutes, he emerges again, dressed in the suit and the white shirt. “I think this one might actually look ok.”

Puck nods a little, and Kurt seems to agree. “Yes. Turn around?” Finn does his slow spin, and Kurt nods, humming to himself. “Yes, I think this one is good. You like it?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Finn says. “It looks sorta Neal Caffrey–ish. I think it’s missing something, though. What’s it missing? Something doesn’t look right.”

“Tie?” Puck suggests, smirking slightly. “Only most of the ties here are kind of… also grey.”

“No, not a tie. I don’t know.” Finn frowns. 

“Shoes?” Kurt offers.

Finn shrugs. “I dunno. It just doesn’t look like it’s all the way done, but I’m not suit guy or anything.”

“All the way done.” Kurt purses his lips again, looking around the store. “Ah.”

“Ah?” Puck raises an eyebrow.

“Pocket square, perhaps. If we’re going by all those pictures you sent me.”

“I didn’t send you _that_ many pictures,” Finn says. “It was just a few.”

“It was the same two men,” Kurt says to Puck, shaking his head. “In grey suits.”

“It was _Neal Caffrey and Michael Westen_ , Kurt,” Finn says. “Not, like, _random_ men. And anyway, one of those suits was blue. And one was black.”

“Of course.” Kurt looks expectantly at Finn. “Well, then. We’ll find you a few ties and pocket squares somewhere that isn’t here.”

“So I should buy this suit?”

“That is my opinion, yes.”

“Your opinion’s… _right_ , right?” Finn asks. 

“You’re catching on, dude.” Puck laughs. 

“Kurt wears lots of suits. He has really nice suits. He knows this stuff,” Finn says, shrugging. “You know, that one suit you’ve got kind of reminds me of…” He trails off and looks a little startled. “Yeah. So. Kurt. And suits.”

“Right.” Kurt shrugs minutely. “So go change and we’ll go to Apple before we find your ties.”

Finn obediently returns to the dressing room and comes back out a few minutes later, dressed in his normal clothes, the approved suit on its hanger in his hand. It takes a lot less time for Finn to actually purchase the suit than it does for Puck to buy his computer, even though he walks in knowing exactly what he wants. 

“Can we eat before we buy ties and squares?” Finn asks. “I didn’t know trying on suits was gonna be such hard work.”

“Food court!” Puck grins. 

“Yes,” Kurt agrees. “Food court. Though we could always get cheesecake to go.”

“I like that plan, too,” Puck nods.

“I like any cheesecake plans,” Finn says.

The food court there is a thing of beauty, Puck decides, ending up with food from five different places before he starts to eat. Finn only goes to two places—three, if you count the smoothie—and Kurt just shrugs with his single bag from Chipotle.

“Any particular thoughts on ties, Finn?” Kurt asks as they finish eating. 

“Uh. Red?” 

“Okay.” Kurt shrugs. “Did you see any you liked at any of the places we went to before?”

“I wasn’t really multitasking or anything,” Finn says. “I was just, you know. Looking at suits.”

“Ah well.” Kurt leans against Puck and closes his eyes briefly. “Solid ties. Red. Where did I see that?”

“At the first place,” Puck says after a minute. 

“Right. Yes. Let’s finish this.”

Thankfully, finding ties and pocket squares that everyone agrees on doesn’t take nearly as long as the suit did, and Puck climbs into the driver’s seat without waiting for Kurt to say a word. 

“Did we accomplish your goals, then, Finn?” Kurt asks.

“I have a suit and more ties than I thought I’d ever need,” Finn says. “So, yes?”

“Three is more than you ever thought you’d need?” Kurt wrinkles his forehead. “Let’s stop above Dayton for coffee or something, Noooaaahh.”

Puck snorts. “Okay.”

“Well, now you have your suit, Finn,” Kurt restates, sounding a little sleepy. “We’ll find you a shower caddy and you’ll be all set!”

 

“Hey guys!” Finn shouts from downstairs. “Mike is here!”

“Ooops.” Kurt giggles. “Go downstairs. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Okay, okay,” Puck grumbles, climbing out of the bed and pulling his jeans back on before swiping his shirt off the floor. He leans over and presses his lips to Kurt’s with a grin before heading down the stairs, pulling his shirt on as he does so. “Hey, Mike.”

“Hey, dude.” Mike blinks after a second when Kurt doesn’t appear on the stairs. “Lose someone?”

Puck laughs. “Nope. Getting dressed.”

“It’s two in the— oh.” Mike stops and snorts. “Got it.”

“Welcome to my life, dude,” Finn says, shrugging. “You’ll adjust.”

“Adjust to what?” Kurt says as he walks down the stairs, looking like he’s been dressed for hours. 

“The two of you. It’s like a learning curve kinda thing,” Finn says. “Eventually Mike’ll just learn to not ask questions or look confused.”

“I’m not sure if I should be insulted or complimented,” Kurt admits, stepping close behind Puck. “Hello, Mike.”

“Hey, Kurt.” Mike grins. “I was telling Finn I brought over _Cowboys and Aliens_. I think Sam was going to bring _Avatar_ again, so.”

“Oh, good,” Puck laughs. “I think he wants all of us fluent in that weird language or something.”

“No, that’s exactly what he wants,” Mike nods. “It’s one of his goals for senior year.”

“I barely made it through Spanish, dude,” Finn says. “I think one language is probably enough. I’m not adding a fake one, too.”

“I can swear in Hebrew.” Puck shrugs. “I told this jackass at work to go suck a cock. He thought I was like, praying over him or something.”

“I’m gonna ask your Nana what you’re saying. I _know_ you’ve said some Hebrew stuff to me, and it had better not have been something awful,” Finn says. 

“Would I tell you that you’re a whore?” Puck asks innocently.

Finn looks like he’s considering it carefully. “Yes. I think that’s possible.”

They all laugh as the doorbell rings. “Possible, but unlikely.” Puck shrugs. “Maybe I was just suggesting you take a dump.”

“ _Dude_!” 

“Hey, I only learned like ten insults! That was one of them.”

“Fascinating, boys, but we should probably let the other two inside the house.”

“Probably,” Puck acknowledges, and the four of them walk to door and swing it open, Mike stepping outside briefly to help Sam with Artie. 

“So, what’s on the agenda today?” Artie asks. “Let me go ahead and remind everybody again that I _can’t_ play the drums.”

“Mike brought _Cowboys and Aliens_ ,” Kurt answers. “And there may have been beer liberation. Ask Finn and Puck.”

“Sometimes stuff just shows up in the kitchen. I don’t always know how it happens,” Finn says. “It was probably Puck.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Puck says, frowning. “K?”

“What? I’m sure it was one of the two of you.” Kurt smiles beatifically. “But there might be cold beer in there that could be liberated from its bottles.”

“Brown might be right about you,” Sam says, shaking his head. 

“Oh?” Kurt narrows his eyes. “What does he say about me?”

“Big brass balls.”

“Hmph.”

“Either way, there’s apparently beer,” Puck interjects. “And video games, and movies, and baseball. And later wings.”

“All of these promise an excellent time,” Artie agrees. 

“No parents?” Sam asks, obviously clarifying. 

“Not for at least four or five hours,” Kurt confirms. “Dad made noises about going out after work if he texted and we were all still here.”

They all agree on video games first, everyone grabbing a beer and jockeying for position on the furniture. Kurt ends up draped across Puck and Finn again, this time with one foot resting on the back of Artie’s chair. “See? Everyone should major in furniture.”

“So glad to be useful,” Artie says wryly. 

“You’ll get used to it. Seriously. Learning curve, but eventually you get used to it,” Finn says. 

“Apparently I’m very distracting with my feet.” Kurt shrugs airily.

“Can you work the controller with them?” Sam asks.

“Hmm. Haven’t tried that, actually.”

Finn and Sam are playing when Puck gets up to grab himself another beer and a handful of chips. “You want another one?” he asks the room at large. 

“I probably shouldn’t,” Artie says. “Last time I had more than one I ended up denting one of my wheels. It still doesn’t roll quite right.”

“Yeah, I’ll skip on a second,” Mike agrees, but the other three all indicate they want a second, and Puck carries four bottles back in, handing Kurt theirs before waiting for a break in the game to hand Finn and Sam each theirs. 

Kurt is handing Mike his ass at Motorsport when Puck wanders back into the kitchen, grabbing a pop instead of one of the two leftover beers. He leans against the counter as Finn comes in and helps himself to one of the remaining beers. 

“We’ll play something _not_ Motorsport next, right?” Finn asks. “All that losing is sort of depressing. You’d think we’d be used to it by now, but he just makes us lose so _bad_.”

Puck laughs. “Yeah. I sort of wonder if he really hates Call of Duty, or if he just can’t win at it.”

“Probably the not winning thing. He does like to win.”

“Yep.” Puck shrugs as Sam walks into the kitchen. 

“Oh, hey, switching to pop’s not a bad idea,” Sam says, almost like he’s searching for something to say. He grabs a can and opens it, taking a long drink before speaking again. “So, uh, Stevie said something interesting over Sunday dinner.”

Finn and Puck exchange glances, and then Finn drops his attention back to his beer, studiously looking away from Sam. 

“Yeah?” Puck asks, feigning disinterest.

“You might want to talk to Hannah, is all,” Sam laughs. “Apparently some of the kids were talking about the school board thing, and that Cooper kid was talking about not even knowing any gay people.”

Puck takes a drink of his own pop, because it doesn’t take a genius to figure out where this is going. Finn takes another couple of sips of his beer, cutting his eyes over to Puck. 

“So Stevie mentions knowing Kurt,” Sam continues, “and he said Hannah just rattled off a list of all the gay people that she knew, and something about if you didn’t like gay people, you were a Nazi. I figure Stevie misunderstood her, but in case he didn’t, you know. You just might want to talk to her, ’cause Stevie said she mentioned Kurt, too, and two guys at synagogue, which I figure are Rachel’s dads, and then she said you were, too.”

Puck’s glad he chose a moment before to stop drinking, because he might’ve just spluttered pop all over everyone. As it is, he just chuckles after half a beat. “Yeah. I’ll talk to her,” is all he says. 

Finn makes a little noise, almost, but not quite, like choking. Sam looks over at Finn and echoes Puck’s laughter. “I know! I told Stevie he’d probably misunderstood or something. My mom looked like she was going to burst out laughing.”

“Just, uh,” Finn coughs a little. “Beer. Snorked it up my nose or something. Probably, you know. Foam.”

“You’re supposed to snort cocaine, dude,” Puck cracks, but really he’s laughing at the image of Mrs. Evans, who apparently has some of the best gaydar in Allen County. “Yeah, well, thanks, dude. I’ll talk to Hannah about it.”

Which isn’t a total lie, after all; Hannah’s done remarkably well for an eight year old, and maybe he shouldn’t have put that burden on her to begin with, but given how much she seems to like Kurt, and that she’s only slipped up once – well, that’s pretty good, Puck figures. 

“Yeah, yeah. I told Stevie not to mention it. As a general thing, I mean. Not outing the dogcatcher and the mailman and whatever.”

Finn polishes off his beer and indicates the last one on the counter. “Either of you guys?”

Puck shakes his head, and Sam holds up his palms. “All yours, dude.”

Finn takes the beer. “We should figure out our wing order and save Mike from Motorsport.”

“There is no escape from Motorsport. It’s like the Hotel California.”


	5. Culture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It might be the closest thing you're going to get in Lima.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** Implied culturing. No, we don't know what that is, but it sounds dirty!

“It always do that?” Rick asks, when the Lemon conks out in the middle of Casey trying to back out of Rick’s driveway. Casey tries not to sound annoyed when he answers, because it’s just Rick and he doesn’t mean anything by it. Rick’s kind of the epitome of ‘Mostly Harmless’.

“Just when I back up. Sometimes on that one hill. And sometimes at stop signs,” Casey explains, recranking the engine. 

Rick just nods his head. “That’s cool. She’s a sweet car.”

“She is! She’s the _best_ car,” Casey says. “Kurt did such an amazing job. You should have seen the before picture. She doesn’t even look like the same car at all! And not just because of the yellow.

“She sure is yellow,” Rick agrees. “So, thanks for picking me up. I had no idea I’d get to missing Alicia so quick. I guess I’m already used to talking to her all the time.”

“Yeah,” Casey says, nodding. “I think it’s just that way sometimes. With some people."

"Yeah. Maybe so," Rick says, then he makes some kind of weird throat–clearing noise, like he's trying to psych himself up to say something. Casey just waits. Rick doesn't need any of Casey's stupid, pushy questions, especially when he’s already all upset about Alicia being gone to the beach with the rest of the Browns. 

They’re almost to the mall before Rick actually starts talking again. “So, Brown said… uh. He said…” Rick doesn’t really sound like he’s sure what he’s trying to say, but Casey has a pretty good idea. It’s probably about what happened after PFLAG, which means it’s exactly what Casey _doesn’t_ want to talk about.

“Miles says lots of things,” Casey says. “Don’t worry. Really. Everything’s fine.”

“You sure?” Rick seems eager to accept Casey’s word for it, so Casey turns his face a little towards Rick and smiles at him.

“Sure I’m sure!” Casey insists. 

“Well, okay. That’s good,” Rick says. “So, are you guys doing anything for spring break?”

“We’re going to Cincinnati to watch a Reds game and to eat chili,” Casey says. “It’s apparently a Karofsky family tradition. They eat a lot of chili. How about you?”

“Nah, we’re not going anywhere. We do our traveling at Christmas and in the summer,” Rick says. “Mostly I end up playing video games and babysitting my brothers and sister.”

“But now we’re going to get some _culture_!” Casey says. “So that’s good.”

“I thought we were going to GameStop,” Rick says. 

“No, that’s just what I told David,” Casey says. “Oh, and you, so you’d come with me.”

As Casey pulls into the mall parking lot, he glances over at Rick, who seems even more confused. 

“But, we’re at the mall,” Rick says. 

“Yes! We are!”

“That’s where GameStop is,” Rick says, sounding confused.

“That’s true,” Casey agrees. “That _is_ where the GameStop is. It’s also where the Artists of Lima exhibit is.”

“The… what?” Rick asks, now sounding _very_ confused.

“The Artists of Lima exhibit! It’s art. Art from _real_ artists! From Lima!” Casey says. “I saw it in the paper. They’re set up in the middle of the mall, and _we_ are going to look at it and have culture.”

“I don’t know that I really need any culture, Casey,” Rick says.

“No, you definitely do.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. Alicia will like it. I bet girls really like it when guys have a lot of culture,” Casey says in his most confident voice, not that he really has any idea what girls like. It _sounds_ like something that would be true, and anyway, _Casey_ really wants to see the art. He didn’t want to ask David to go with him, though, because… well, just because. And even if Miles were in town, he’d feel weird asking Miles to go look at art with him. Rick probably does need some culture, or at least he’s somebody Casey can drag along with him who won’t complain or get mad at him or anything like that. 

“Maybe I can get Alicia some art or something,” Rick says. “She’d probably like that.”

“See? Art and culture,” Casey says. “Definitely.”

Casey leads Rick to the center of the mall, where they find the Artists of Lima exhibit consists of about a dozen watercolor and oil paintings tacked to an upholstered folding wall thing. The paintings are mostly of flowers, though three of them seem to be of the same pair of orange kittens, and one of them is of a bowl of oranges next to a glass of water, which is just kind of weird. Casey and Rick stare at the paintings for a long time.

“Well,” Casey says, finally. “That’s sort of disappointing.”

“I don’t think I feel any more cultured, Casey,” Rick says.

“Yeah. I don’t, either,” Casey says, with a sad sigh. “You want to go look at video games instead?”

“I never wanted to look at any art at all,” Rick confesses. 

“That’s okay,” Casey says. “I’m pretty sure we didn’t.”

The GameStop proves to be a lot less disappointing that the art show, and they run into Taylor in front of the Wii games. “Hey,” Taylor greets them with a lop-sided grin. “How’s your break going?”

“We didn’t look at art,” Casey says. “How about you?”

“Were you planning to?” Taylor looks confused. “And, you know.” He shrugs. “All right. Mom and Dad said maybe we’d drive over to Cleveland Monday.”

“Casey planned to look at art. I just planned to look at video games,” Rick says. “Cleveland’s cool. You gonna see the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame?”

“Yeah, we never have made it over there, even though we’ve lived in Ohio for twelve years.” Taylor laughs. “Either of you tried Xenoblade yet?”

Casey shakes his head and Rick looks confused. “Is that a ninja game?”

“Nah, no ninjas. Trying to decide between getting it or finding one my dad might play, too.”

“I’ve mostly got the sports games,” Rick says. “You got Mario Super Sluggers? My dad loves that one.”

“Yeah? Hmm.” Taylor looks on the shelf. “Yeah, I can see where maybe Dad would like that.” He grins at Rick again. “Cool. Thanks.”

“See, Casey? I’ve got culture,” Rick says, grinning at Casey. 

“Mario isn’t culture.”

Taylor looks at them quizzically. “There’s a play running over at OSU–Lima if you really want culture, guys.”

Casey shudders. “David had to see that. He said it was _so_ bad. He didn’t try to make me go. He said he thought the bad southern accents might traumatize me.”

“I feel traumatized just hearing about it,” Rick says. 

“Oh, well,” Taylor shrugs. “Dad mentioned it on Tuesday, but he hadn’t seen it or anything.”

“He shouldn’t,” Casey says. “It’s _bad_. So bad. Why’s that cat even _on_ that roof?”

“Ask Tennessee Williams?” Taylor shrugs. “Not a clue.”

“I’m good without culture,” Rick says. “You guys wanna go get a pretzel or something?”

“Make it a cheese steak and I’m in,” Taylor shrugs. 

“You know, I think they’re going to have a photography exhibit here next month,” Casey says. “We should try again. Maybe it won’t be flowers and cats.”

“Yeah, I think you can give Karofsky some culture,” Rick says. 

“Rick, you have a dirty mouth,” Taylor says admiringly. 

“What? Casey started it!”

“Now, I’ve met Casey before,” Taylor smirks. “I know he’s all pure and innocent and would never suggest something so lewd in a public place!”

Casey just laughs. “No, he means actual culture. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Is that a thing? Do people… _culture_ or something?”

Taylor shakes his head slowly. “You two are horrible examples of teenage boys. And that’s _me_ saying that.” He shrugs. “Just saying.”

As the three of them head towards the cheese steak place, Casey leans over and whispers to Rick, “Are you Googling that when you get home? ’Cause I know I am.”


End file.
